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Facts

• In the United States, 21.5 million women smoke, 4.5 million are alcoholics or alcohol abusers, 3.35 million misuse prescription drugs, and 3.1 million regularly use illicit drugs.

• Alcoholic women are more frequently disabled, and for longer periods, than alcoholic men, reflecting, in part, differences in the process of identification that ultimately lead to diagnosis.

• The frequency of menstrual disturbances, spontaneous abortions, and miscarriages increases with level of drinking; problem drinking has adverse effects on fertility and sexual function.

• Drug abuse can occur at any stage in a woman's life. However, about half of these women are in the childbearing age group of 15 to 44.

• Among drug-using women, 70% report having been abused sexually before the age of 16, and more than 80% had at least one parent addicted to alcohol or one or more illicit drugs.

• More than 28,000 (70%) of the AIDS cases among women are drug-related.

• Women's dependence on smoking is affected by factors in addition to nicotine, which may include non-drug-induced sensory effects such as seeing and smelling cigarette smoke, conditioned responses to these smoke stimuli, or social pleasures involved in smoking rituals.

• Women who smoke during pregnancy are at risk for premature birth, pregnancy complications, low birthweight infants, stillbirth, and a higher rate of infant mortality.

• Using tobacco increases a woman's risk of heart disease and stroke, reproductive disorders, emphysema, bronchitis, pneumonia, and cancer (lung, cervical, mouth, throat, pancreas, and bladder).

• Death rates due to smoking-related illnesses are rising rapidly among women.

• Nearly all first-tobacco use occurs prior to high school graduation. If onset can be delayed until after age eighteen, many young people will never begin to smoke.

Table13: A TO D Use by Prenatal Substance Use Prevention Programs (P S U P P) Clients

*Used during pregnancy only

Who Is At Risk?

1. Women with family history of substance abuse, child abuse, or who have been physically or sexually abused are more prone to use alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.

2. Women who are school dropouts or have poor education are at an increased risk for abusing alcohol.

3. Women with role deprivations (loss of role as wife, mother, or worker) may be at an increased risk for abusing alcohol.

4. Women with low self-esteem, who are lonely and isolated from support networks are at greater risk for abusing alcohol and drugs.

Warning Signs

1. Defensiveness concerning substance abuse issues.

2. Late prenatal care or no prenatal care by pregnant women.

3. Inconsistent medical and social histories by women who change doctors/hospitals frequently

4. Previous pre-term deliveries, low birthweight babies, and placental abnormalities

5. Women whose peers are engaging in high-risk behaviors.

Figure 21: Alcohol Use Patterns of PSUPP Clients, 1997

Actions To Decrease the Risk of Substance Abuse

1. Provide mass media campaigns, characterized by multiple and repeated messages which can influence smoking behavior by changing awareness, knowledge, and attitudes of smokers.

2. Teach skills necessary for smoking cessation.

3. Provide outreach services to educate and link women to treatment and other community resources.

4. Reduce the stigma surrounding addicted women so that they feel comfortable seeking treatment.

5. Provide on-going funding to address the limited coverage for substance abuse treatment under Medicaid problems created by grant funding cycles and the lack of reimbursement for special services.

Table 14: Monthly Alcohol, Tobacco, and Marijuana Use Among Female High School Seniors, 1997

Healthy People 2000 Target/Indiana's Progress

• Reduce the proportion of Indiana's young people who have used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine in the past month as indicated in the Year 2000 target.

• Increase abstinence from alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana by Indiana's pregnant women by at least 20%.

Table 15: Reduction of Young People who have used Alcohol, Marijuana, and Cocaine in the past month: Baseline and Target

Source: Indiana Prevention Resource Center.

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