Adolescent Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Use in Association With Other Drug Use, Injection Drug Use, and Team Sport Participation

Abstract

Introduction

The majority of epidemiologic research on adolescent non-medical anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) use was conducted in the 1990s and early 2000s, indicating a need to update evidence for the modern era. We aim to understand the prevalence of AAS use among US adolescents and assess associations between AAS use, sports participation, other drug use, and injection drug use (IDU).

Methods

Using data from the 2017 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, we estimated the prevalence of AAS use and tested for associations between AAS use, sports participation, and drug use, overall and by sex.

Results

The prevalence of AAS use was 2.98%. The prevalence among boys (3.46%) was higher than among girls (2.41%). AAS use was high among youth with lifetime heroin use (64.41%) and IDU (64.42%). There was no association between AAS and team sport participation (p = 0.61).

Conclusions

Our results indicate that adolescent AAS use is an aspect of polysubstance use rather than a substance used solely for performance enhancement in sports. Research with adolescents should be mindful of the overlap of heroin and AAS use among youth with IDU.

Keywords:

• Adolescents
• anabolic-androgenic steroids
• injection drug use
• Youth Risk Behavior Survey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

KES, LW, and DB were supported by a NIDA training grant [5T32DA007292]. This work was supported by the Opioid Policy Tools and Information Center of Excellence (OPTIC) Pilot Project award, funded by grant [P50DA046351] from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The funding organization had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.