UTSA program aims to prevent substance abuse among local middle schoolers

December 4, 2019

UTSA Today

UTSA is working with a San Antonio middle school on the city’s West Side to provide an alcohol and substance abuse prevention intervention program designed to educate at-risk adolescents on the effects that alcohol and other illicit drugs have on the body and mind.

The UTSA Institute for Health Disparities Research has been awarded a five-year, $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to fund Project Preventing Adolescent Alcohol and Substance Abuse.

The 2018 Texas School Survey of Drugs and Alcohol Use indicated that 34% of seventh graders had used alcohol in their lifetime and almost 15% indicated having used alcohol in the past month. The rate of use is even higher among eighth graders, with 42% having ever used alcohol and 20% having used in the past month.

Read full story  »