European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD)

The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) has been carried out every four years since 1995 in more than 30 European countries, and since 2007 in Monaco. It was initiated at the European level in 1995 by the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), with support from the Council of Europe (Pompidou Group). The survey targets students in their sixteenth year, the age at which mandatory education ends in the majority of European countries.

Students are surveyed using a standardised methodology and a self-administered questionnaire common to all participating countries. It thus offers an excellent basis for comparing behaviours around the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs by young Europeans aged 16 years, and the ability to look back over a long period.

It asks teenagers in school about their health behaviours using a procedure and questionnaire common to all participating countries

Carried out since 2007 in Monaco, it concerns all the Principality’s schools level “Lycée” (state-run and private). It covered every single student in attendance at those schools on the day of the survey. In Monaco, a decision was taken not to restrict the survey solely to students aged 16 at the time of the survey (i.e. those born in 2003), as set out in the European protocol, but to expand it to all lycée (upper secondary school) students, in order to give a more comprehensive picture of the situation in Monaco.

Students are surveyed using a standardised methodology and a self-administered questionnaire common to all participating countries. The survey is distributes in class, during one hour of lessons.

Once collected, the completed questionnaires from all classrooms are brought together. From this point on, it is impossible to trace the class or school to which the responding student belongs.

Moreover, while the ESPAD Monaco questionnaire does not contain any personal data, the Data Protection Authority of Monaco was notified of the survey in advance, with an explanation of how the survey would be conducted and of the strictly anonymous nature of the questionnaire, the processing of which would not enable a student to be identified directly or indirectly.

The last edition was led in Monaco, on April 4^th 2019 by Monaco Statistics, collaborating with the  Direction de l'Éducation Nationale de la Jeunesse et des Sports (DENJS) and over the scientific responsabilty of l’Observatoire français des drogues et des toxicomanies (OFDT) .

The Monaco Statistics national reports for this survey can be found on this page , and the European reports here.