Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH-2012)

Metadata Updated: July 26, 2023

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) series (formerly titled National Household Survey on Drug Abuse) primarily measures the prevalence and correlates of drug use in the United States. The surveys are designed to provide quarterly, as well as annual, estimates. Information is provided on the use of illicit drugs, alcohol, and tobacco among members of United States households aged 12 and older. Questions included age at first use as well as lifetime, annual, and past-month usage for the following drug classes: marijuana, cocaine (and crack), hallucinogens, heroin, inhalants, alcohol, tobacco, and nonmedical use of prescription drugs, including pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives. The survey covered substance abuse treatment history and perceived need for treatment, and included questions from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders that allow diagnostic criteria to be applied. The survey included questions concerning treatment for both substance abuse and mental health-related disorders. Respondents were also asked about personal and family income sources and amounts, health care access and coverage, illegal activities and arrest record, problems resulting from the use of drugs, and needle-sharing. Questions introduced in previous administrations were retained in the 2012 survey, including questions asked only of respondents aged 12 to 17. These "youth experiences" items covered a variety of topics, such as neighborhood environment, illegal activities, drug use by friends, social support, extracurricular activities, exposure to substance abuse prevention and education programs, and perceived adult attitudes toward drug use and activities such as school work. Several measures focused on prevention-related themes in this section. Also retained were questions on mental health and access to care, perceived risk of using drugs, perceived availability of drugs, driving and personal behavior, and cigar smoking. Questions on the tobacco brand used most often were introduced with the 1999 survey. For the 2008 survey, adult mental health questions were added to measure symptoms of psychological distress in the worst period of distress that a person experienced in the past 30 days and suicidal ideation. In 2008, a split-sample design also was included to administer separate sets of questions (WHODAS vs. SDS) to assess impairment due to mental health problems. Beginning with the 2009 NSDUH, however, all of the adults in the sample received only the WHODAS questions. Background information includes gender, race, age, ethnicity, marital status, educational level, job status, veteran status, and current household composition.This study has 1 Data Set.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date November 10, 2020
Metadata Updated Date July 26, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from Healthdata.gov

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 10, 2020
Metadata Updated Date July 26, 2023
Publisher Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration
Maintainer
Identifier https://datafiles.samhsa.gov/study/national-survey-drug-use-and-health-nsduh-2012-nid13601
Data First Published 2016-05-23
Data Last Modified 2023-07-25
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 009:30
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://healthdata.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 92d0454c-f5d3-4e35-997a-5561d0ba9bbe
Harvest Source Id 651e43b2-321c-4e4c-b86a-835cfc342cb0
Harvest Source Title Healthdata.gov
Homepage URL https://healthdata.gov/dataset/national-survey-drug-use-and-health-nsduh-2012-0
Program Code 009:030
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 4cf6f88cda552b395ad573d509bfb8b9d24df1ba
Source Schema Version 1.1

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.