European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD): 30 years
On 20 May 2025, the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) will publish a brief report with the main findings from the 2024 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD). The report will appear on the EUDA website, and a direct link will be placed on the ESPAD home page.
The interactive ESPAD data platform, managed by the Institute of Clinical Physiology of Italy’s National Research Council, will be updated on the same day with the new 2024 data set.
Today, the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) is launching a new data explorer tool, allowing access to over 20 years of ESPAD data on substance use among 15-16-year-old students. ESPAD is the largest cross-national research project on adolescent substance use in the world, bringing together independent research teams in over 40 European countries. Developed by the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), the new tool holds data collected between 1995 and 2019.
The ESPAD has been collecting comparable data on risk behaviours and substance use among adolescent students for almost 25 years, in order to monitor trends in and between countries. The study is conducted in each participating country as a school survey for students reaching the age of 16 years during the year of the data collection, and following a common methodology. A handbook describing the methodology and reporting procedures drives the implementation of the study in the participating countries, thus facilitating the collection of comprehensive and comparable data.
This is the seventh data-collection wave conducted by the ESPAD project since 1995. A total of 99 647 students participated in the latest survey round, responding to an anonymous questionnaire. The ESPAD Report 2019 features information on students’ experience of, and perceptions about, a variety of substances, including: tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs, inhalants, pharmaceuticals and new psychoactive substances (NPS). Social media use, gaming and gambling are also covered.
The report package may be found on the dedicated ESPAD Report 2019 page.
Smoking and drinking among 15–16-year-old school students are showing signs of decline, but there are concerns over potentially risky cannabis use and the challenges posed by new addictive behaviours. These are among the findings released today in a new report from the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD). The study, published in collaboration with the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA), is based on a 2019 survey in 35 European countries, including 25 EU Member States (1).
News release: Upcoming data on substance use and risk behaviours among school students across Europe