A cross sectional survey on the prevalence and determinants of alcohol and substance use among primary and high schools students. This project, will not only look at patterns and prevalence of substance use in urban primary and secondary schools, but will also identify factors that encourage alcohol intake by adolescents include parenting, cultural factors and the home environment.

This project was informed by the fact that drug use and abuse remain a critical problem in our country and is associated with adverse social and economic consequences. The World Health Organization (WHO) points out that many school children experiment with alcohol before the age of 12 and that pre-teen alcohol initiation, which continues into adolescence and worsens, leads to adverse health outcomes among the youth. A high prevalence of drinking at an early age bodes ill for the psychosocial development of the youth because of the increased risk for alcohol–related problems like poor school performance, more substance–use and other co–occurring problems, tobacco use, sexual activity, violence, drunk driving, suicide, delinquency, unintended pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases.

We believe that students who increase their drinking from adolescence to early adulthood and who consistently binge drink at least once a week during this period may have problems attaining the goals typical of the transition from adolescence to young adulthood (e.g., marriage, educational attainment, employment, and financial independence).
This study will also look to the common trends of alcohol and substance use among school going children in Nairobi to establish if there are new and emerging trends. It also targets to establish factors that may be facilitative or prohibitive of alcohol and substance use among students with the aim of establishing interventions that can be developed to mitigate use of substances among the youth. This study will also identify the students’ perceptions on the use of these substances.
This study will allow us to determine what influences specific youth drinking patterns, that we can use in designing potential interventions. It will help us identify and modify high-risk behavior to alcohol and substance use in order to be successful in prevention of alcohol problems instead of solely trying to prevent the initiation of drinking.

1. To determine the prevalence of alcohol and substance use and any differences if any between primary and secondary schools 2. To determine whether a difference in prevalence exists between boys and girls studying in secondary schools 3. To identify which substances are mostly abused by Kenyan school youth 4. To establish whether a relationship exists between the students’ psychological, living conditions and socio-economic factors and alcohol and substance use 5. To assess factors possibly predictive of alcohol and substance use in Kenyan youth in schools

We will involve public schools only, both primary and secondary. We will involve classes seven to eight in primary schools and forms one and two in high schools. The schools will be mixed day schools (boys and girls). Day schools were selected because it will be easy to get parental consent as the students normally go home every evening.
These schools will be randomly selected from four divisions of Nairobi. Nairobi County will be divided into four geographical divisions, Nairobi East, Nairobi North, Nairobi West and Westlands districts. From each division, a primary and a secondary school will be randomly picked from the list of schools in each category. A list of these schools will be obtained from the County Education Office. Once in the schools, all the students in target classes will be involved. This is because selecting some students and leaving others would bring stigma among the students.
The data collection tools will consist of three self-administered questionnaires, administered primarily to students 12-16 years of age. We will use a standardized scientific sample selection process, commonly used school-based methodology and a combination of core questionnaire modules, core-expanded questions, and specific questions. The socio-demographic data will be collected on all students; their hierarchy of values, family relations, adjustment to school, relationships with peers, high-risk and delinquent behavior
1. Social demographic - 10 minutes
2. Youth questionnaire on alcohol and substance use - a collaboration questionnaire but adapted for Kenyan use- 20 minutes
3. Khat questionnaire
End date: December 2014