The results of the 2024 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD) are released today in an extensive new report analysing adolescent substance use behaviours across Europe. The report — expanding on the key findings published in May 2025 — portrays a generation ‘in profound transition’.
Teenage drinking, smoking and cannabis use continue to decline but new behavioural and health risks are on the rise. The report flags growing concerns over increasing e-cigarette use, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs and a sharp rise in social media use, online gaming and gambling among teenagers. These trends are most striking among girls, where long-standing gender gaps in substance use appear to be narrowing, or even reversing.
According to the report: ‘While the continued decline in the use of established substances is welcome, it is clear that this does not necessarily correspond to a reduction in risk. Indeed, the intertwining of psychoactive substance use and digital risk behaviours represents a new and complex challenge for public health’.
The study, carried out in collaboration with the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) and coordinated by the Italian National Research Council (CNR), is based on a 2024 survey in 37 European countries, including 25 EU Member States (1). This is the eighth data-collection wave conducted by the ESPAD project since 1995, and the first one carried out after the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 113 882 students (aged 15–16-years) participated in this latest survey round, responding to an anonymous questionnaire. This edition marks 30 years of monitoring adolescent risky behaviours across Europe.
Among the new challenges for policy and practice, the report highlights three strategic priorities.
- Expanding evidence-based prevention — Broader, evidence-based prevention approaches are needed to address the full spectrum of today’s youth risk behaviours. The roll-out of the EUDA’s European Prevention Curriculum (EUPC) — a training programme widely adopted by prevention professionals — is a positive step forward, as is the agency’s Xchange registry of evaluated prevention programmes.
- Prioritising mental health and well-being — New vulnerabilities call for a stronger focus on mental health and well-being in schools and communities. Gender-sensitive approaches to health promotion are needed to help address emerging risks among adolescent girls.
- Addressing digital environments — Urgent action is needed to develop interventions that limit young people’s early exposure to digital risks. These include tackling the potential harms of online gaming (e.g. addictive design) or preventing underage access to online gambling (e.g. stronger digital identity and age verification).
The report concludes by underlining the need to better understand and respond to the complex and dynamic changes shaping young people’s lives and build trust through multisectoral, agile interventions. ‘Only through such a systemic perspective can risk be transformed into resilience, and environments be created that support the development of healthier and self-aware youth’.
The continuous and collective monitoring effort of the ESPAD project plays a vital role in advancing the understanding of adolescent risk behaviours and in providing robust, comparable evidence across time and countries to inform policymaking. The ESPAD Report 2024, released today, offers unique insights to guide prevention and policy.
