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Date: 2/2/2022
BELCHERTOWN - During the Belchertown School Committee’s Jan. 25 meeting, the committee received a presentation from the Quabog Hills Substance Use Alliance about substance use statistics in Belchertown and the surrounding area.
To start the presentation, Gail Gramarossa, the prevention director with Quabog Hills Substance Use Alliance, said the organization has been around for nearly a decade.
“We have been around for almost eight years now and have been looking at substance use prevention, treatment and recovery issues in over a dozen towns in Hampden, Hampshire and Worcester County, and Belchertown has been participating in this group since the beginning,” she said.
In recent years, Gramarossa said the purview of the organization has spread beyond just substance use.
“We like to look at both what puts youth at risk for substance use and other health issues. We are now more frequently talking about substance use and mental health together; they are so linked at times. So, we not only look at what puts them at risk but what protects them in the large community,” she said.
Gramarossa explained that the data was collected between March and May of 2021 and sampled from eighth, 10th and 12th graders from multiple school districts.
“In our entire region we had over 1,000 students, this data is Belchertown-specific, but when numbers are too small in any one school district, we then look at the entire region. For example, if we look at a specific subset of students like LGBTQ identifying students, we tend to look at the whole region because each school does not have the numbers,” she said.
Maegan Boutot, an epidemiologist with the Quabog Hills Substance Use Alliance, said that most students had not used a substance in the 30 days prior to taking the survey in the spring.
“Most Belchertown students did not use any substance, alcohol, marijuana or vape products in the prior 30 days. We see that eighth graders are more likely to not use than 12th graders so that is not unexpected but the majority of students in Belchertown did not use a substance in the past 30 days,” she said.
Boutot also said thoughts toward vaping changed between 2019 and 2021.
“Students in general were more likely to perceive vaping as moderate or great harm for their health, social access is definitely playing a role here we cannot say it is going to be that way in 2023, but I think it is worth pointing out that eighth, 10th and 12th graders all thought vaping was more harmful to their health in 2021 than 2017 and 2019,” she said.
From the data, Boutot said many students reported they do not use substances because of their negative health effects.
“The number one reason students reported not using substances was for their health, almost nine out of 10 students said they do not use different substances because they are worried about their health and almost seven in 10 do not use substances to make their parents or guardians proud,” she said. “I think students really care about themselves – which is great – and what people think about them, and those are important factors in health decisions.”
Along with wanting their parents to be proud of them, Boutot said many Belchertown students have strict rules for substance in their households.
“We also found that eight out of ten students in Belchertown have households with clear rules for substance use. This is important because students who live in households with clear substance use rules are far less likely to have used substances in the last 30 days,” she said.
Another area Boutot discussed during her presentation is the support students receive at home and at school.
“Increasing support across those three domains, support at school, support at home and support of school at home are associated with lower odds of anxiety and depression, lower odds of reporting suicidal ideation and self-harm and lowering substance use in the last 30 days prior to the survey, so having support at home and at school makes a difference in students’ lives,” she said.
Boutot added that LGBTQ+ students along with non-white students had lower support scores than white students.
“Students who identify as LGBTQ+ may need additional support, these students had significantly lower average support scores across the two relative support demands. LGBTQ+ had lower scores overall for having support at home and school support at home,” she said.
Citing data from the survey specifically about support at home for LGBTQ+ students and students that do not identify as white, she said more mental health support is required.
“All students, especially LBGTQ+ and Hispanic non-white students need mental health supports. LGBTQ, non-white and Hispanic students were more likely than white students to experience anxiety, depression, self-harm or suicidal ideation,” she said.
During the meeting the committee also approved the final reading of the COVID-19 Immunization policy for staff.
The Belchertown School Committee next meets on Feb. 8 and coverage of that meeting will appear in the Feb. 17 edition of The Reminder.