The Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drugs Survey (CSTADS) is a survey conducted in grades 7-12 (secondary I-secondary V in Quebec) every other year. Formerly the Youth Smoking Survey (YSS), CSTADS collects data on youth substance use, and other areas identified by schools as priorities, such as bullying, mental health and how connected students feel to their school.
CSTADS will provide Health Canada, provinces, schools, communities, and parents with timely and reliable data on tobacco, alcohol and drug use in addition to other related issues about Canadian students. School-aged children and youth are generally recognized as most at risk for experimenting with tobacco products, alcohol and drugs. With a consistent measure of student substance use it is possible to examine the factors that influence youth behaviour with respect to tobacco, alcohol and drug use.
The Propel Centre for Population Health Impact at the
University of Waterloo has been centrally coordinating the implementation of CSTADS (formerly the YSS) since 2004, and works with
provincial partners to implement the project in each province. Propel has a reputation for conducting high quality research that is not overly disruptive to school staff and students.
Past results for CSTADS/YSS are available in the reports and results section of our website.
