NATIONAL HOUSEHOLD SURVEY ON DRUG ABUSE: analgesics

1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse

Use of Analgesics (Tables 6.8 to 6.10)

Tables 6.8 to 6.10 show that in 1997, 4.9% of persons aged 12 or older (about 10.7 million persons [see Table 2.1 and OAS, 1998b, Table 12A]) had used prescription-type analgesics for nonmedical reasons in their lifetime, 1.9% had used analgesics in the past year (4.2 million persons), and 0.7% had done so in the past month (1.6 million persons). Past year and past month rates were significantly higher among those aged 12 to 25 than among the two older age groups. Although males were more likely than females to report past year use of analgesics, there were no significant differences by gender for past month use. Additionally, there were no significant differences for past year or past month use by race/ethnicity. Rates of past year and past month analgesic use were lower among those in the Northeast than among those in all other regions.

This page was last updated on June 16, 2008.

SAMHSA, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is the Federal Government's lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States.

* Adobe™ PDF and MS Office™ formatted files require software viewer programs to properly read them. Click here to download these FREE programs now