Early substance use is strongly associated with increased risk of developing substance use disorders later in life. 1 Substance use among adolescents is also associated with lower academic performance, high rates of mental illness, and increased involvement in health risking behaviors such as risky sexual behaviors and violence. 2 3 Substance use disorder remains a major public health concern, underscoring the need to educate young people about the risks, harms, and potential fatal consequences of substance use. 4
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The following bar graphs show how many New Mexico high school students engaged in certain behaviors. The numbers are shown as percentages for different groups of students.
The first bar graph shows the overall rate (prevalence) for all New Mexico high school students combined.
On the other graphs, you’ll see a black dotted line that shows the prevalence for the whole state, and a grey shaded area around the dotted line that shows the 95% confidence interval.
Because of the high cost and logistical complications involved in conducting a statewide survey, the NM-YRRS was administered to a sample of students, rather than to every single student in each school district. Because NM-YRRS data are from a sample of students, and not the entire student body, the results in this report are estimates. As with all estimates, there is some uncertainty associated with each of these results. On the charts in this report, this degree of uncertainty is represented by an error bar (confidence interval). The error bar is the thin black line that extends left and right of the end of each bar in a chart. One of the major influences on the size of the confidence interval or error bar is the number of participants in the survey. In general, this means that with more students participating in the survey, there will be a higher degree of confidence in the results (i.e., error bars will be smaller).