Are School‐Aged Children Who Self‐Identify as Neurodivergent at Greater Risk of Substance Misuse? A Study of 20 000 Secondary School Students
John Headley Ward, Francesca Happé, Mina Fazel · 2026
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Description
John Headley Ward, Francesca Happé, and Mina Fazel ask whether teenagers who call themselves neurodivergent use substances more than their peers. The term covers young people who see their minds as wired differently, beyond formal diagnoses such as autism or ADHD. The team analyzed the 2023 OxWell survey of 21,749 secondary school students in England.
A quarter of the students identified as neurodivergent. Frequent substance use was uncommon overall, under ten percent. Yet neurodivergent students were clearly more likely to sit in the higher use bands. Those bands cover daily vaping or smoking, frequent or binge drinking, and any use of illicit drugs. The gap survived adjustment for age, sex, background, family history, and mental health scores. The authors call for school prevention programs built to reach neurodivergent young people.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | John Headley Ward, Francesca Happé, Mina Fazel |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 42 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |