In Switzerland, 5.8% of children aged under 15 live in a family where one or both parents show heavy alcohol consumption. 31.3% are raised in an environment where the parents consume products containing nicotine (e.g. tobacco products, e‑cigarettes) on a daily basis. The proportion of children whose parents make heavy consumption of illegal drugs (e.g. cannabis, cocaine, heroin) is low (1.8%). Some children’s parents show multiple heavy substance consumption. This is the case, in particular, with alcohol and nicotine (1.9%).
This indicator is part of the Monitoring System Addiction and NCD (MonAM) of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH).
This indicator shows the proportion of children who live in a household where one or both parents show heavy substance consumption.
Children’s physical and emotional development can be adversely affected by parental addiction. For this reason, children from families with heavy substance consumption are an important target group for prevention and support measures.
Studies show that children from families with parental heavy substance consumption have an increased risk of developing addiction problems themselves as adults. Within the family setting, substance consumption-related attitudes and behaviours are largely passed on from parents to their children (parental example). In addition, genetic factors may lead to more frequent occurrence of heavy substance consumption in certain families.
The burdens for children vary widely, depending on the particular substance heavily consumed by parents. Summing of indicator values across all substances is therefore not recommended. Caution should be exercised when comparing the values for different substances.
The data for this indicator is based on the study by Hümbelin et al. (2020). In this study, the number and proportion of children whose parents show heavy substance consumption are estimated on the basis of the Swiss Health Survey (SHS). In the SHS, 22,134 people aged over 15 were surveyed on their health behaviour. Among the respondents are 4,517 parents with children under 15 in their household. Based on their responses, it was possible to describe the situation of 7,743 children. The prevalence is the proportion of children with parents showing heavy substance consumption, in relation to all the children included in the estimation. Parental substance consumption was classified as “heavy” according to the following criteria:
Alcohol: heavy chronic or episodic alcohol consumption, as defined by the WHO:
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