In this report and the work of the Six-State Consortium, risk factors are characteristics of individuals or family, school or community environments that are related to an increased likelihood of youth problem behaviors, like substance abuse. In contrast, protective factors are characteristics related to a decreased likelihood of such behaviors. These factors can be interrelated, and efforts to reduce risk and increase protection often require multidimensional approaches. The social indicator then is an actual measure of the risk or protective factor using an archival data source.

Measures Included in the Final Report

This Final Report provides measures of the frequency of 40 social indicators at the state and county level for two different years. A subset of 1999 indicators are then reported for nine communities or jurisdictions across the State. Several of the individual indicators included in this report are replacements for those in the original list distributed by SAMHSA. Table 1 indicates which of the indicator variables are in the original SAMHSA list and which are reported here by county and community/jurisdiction.

While standard definitions for each of the social indicators were provided by SAMHSA and were used when possible, it became necessary to refine a number of the definitions due to data availability. The final definitions (labeled "ADHS Definition") are provided at the bottom of each table reporting the statewide frequency of the social indicator and in the Data Definitions section of this report. In this report, simple tabular presentations of rates and corresponding confidence intervals were prepared for each social indicator for each county and for the state. Maps of the relative frequency of the social indicator across the counties were developed. Social indicator data were also provided in profiles of all indicators for each county.

Table 1.  Validated Archival Indicators of Risk and Outcome Variables that Predict Problem Behavior.