Giving Compass' Take:

· According to a new study, more U.S. teens are abstaining from substance abuse during their high school years. Reuters suggests this decline comes from successful efforts to relay the negative health effects of smoking and drinking at an early age.

· How can we continue to reduce these numbers? What position do funders and donors play in increasing awareness for this issue?  

· Here are some effective communication strategies to start the conversation about substance abuse in adolescents. 

High school students in the U.S. are a lot more sober than they used to be, a new study suggests.

The proportion of high school students in their final year who have never tried alcohol or drugs increased fivefold from 1975 to 2014, and surged nearly as much for younger students between 1991 and 2014, the study found.

“The message that substance use is unhealthy seems to be gaining in popularity and ‘sticking’ with kids,” said lead study author Dr. Sharon Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

For the study, researchers examined four decades of data from a national survey asking 8th-, 10th- and 12th-grade students about their use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana and other substances. Questions touched on lifetime use as well as use in the past 30 days.

Read the full article about the decline in teen substance use by Lisa Rapaport at Reuters.