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Movie violence associated with sex, alcohol and tobacco use

Nearly 90 percent of the top-grossing movies over a 25-year period show main characters acting violently, and in 77 percent of the movies those characters also engage in sex-, alcohol- or tobacco-related behavior, a new study has shown. The study published in Pediatrics, by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, found that more than half of the biggest PG-13 movies featured a main character acting violently and involved in either drinking, sexual behavior or smoking within a five-minute segment.

Issue brief: Drug Prevention in Schools

Dan Romer, director of APPC’s Adolescent Health and Communication Institutes, reviews the evidence on ways to prevent drug abuse in middle and high school youth, focusing on mandatory random drug testing. Since the 1990s, interest has been growing in the use of such tests to deter drug use among teenagers. The review finds that mandatory

Student Drug Testing Only Shows Effects Among Girls in High Schools With Good Social Climates; Regardless of Climate, No Deterrent Effect for Boys, APPC Study Finds

Research conducted with over 940 high school students in two nationally representative surveys finds that male students in high schools that conduct student drug testing report no less recent use of alcohol, marijuana, or cigarettes than male students in schools without drug testing. Although there was evidence of effectiveness for female students, this only occurred