Liu Tzu-suan and Xia Yiwei, PhD students from the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS), University of Macau (UM), and their supervisor Prof Spencer De Li, associate dean of the FSS, recently won a second prize at the National Conference on Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment and the 17th Academic Conference of the Chinese Association of Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment, for their co-authored paper titled ‘Parenting Practices and Adolescent Drug Use: A Comparison between China and USA’.

By combining the baseline data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 in the United States and the data collected by UM’s research team in a large city in China (the latter was funded by UM, with Prof Spencer Li as the principal investigator), the study systematically compares the differences in parenting practices and substance use between China and the US in the two survey samples. It has found that the rate of substance abuse is significantly lower among Chinese adolescents than among their American counterparts. Further, by comparing the influences of parental supervision, response and control on adolescent substance abuse in the two countries, the study has found that in China, parental supervision and response significantly inhibit adolescent substance abuse while parental control shows no noticeable effect; but in the US, parental supervision, response and control all play a significant role in preventing adolescent substance abuse. The study provides social and cultural explanations of the differences between the two countries.

This year’s conference attracted a record number of participants and papers. More than 500 representatives from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao participated in the conference and submitted more than 100 papers in total. The event was administrated by the Chinese Association of Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment, with Taiwan Society for Substance Abuse Research as a co-organiser.

澳門大學社會科學學院社會學系博士研究生劉子瑄、夏一巍，與其導師、該院副院長李德合著論文“父母教養方式與青少年濫藥行為之關係：中美比較研究”，在“2018年全國藥物濫用防治研討會暨中國藥物濫用防治協會第十七屆學術會議＂上發表，並在青年優秀論文評選中突圍而出，獲二等獎。

該獲獎論文結合了“美國1997年全國青少年縱向調查＂（NLSY97）的基線數據，以及澳大研究團隊在中國大型城市收集的數據，系統地比較了中美兩國樣本中父母教養方式對青少年濫藥行為的差異，結果發現中國青少年物質濫用率顯著低於美國青少年。其次，在進一步比較了父母監督、回應和控制對中美青少年濫藥行為的作用後，研究發現中國父母監測和回應均能顯著抑制青少年的濫藥行為，但是父母的控制卻對濫藥行為無顯著影響。但在美國樣本中，所有父母教養方式，包括父母監測、控制和回應均能顯著抑制濫藥行為。澳大師生對兩國之間的差異做出了社會和文化層次上的解釋。是次研究使用的數據來自於由澳大資助的、在中國內地進行的一項大型調查項目，李德教授為該項目首席調查員。

2018年全國藥物濫用防治協會暨中國藥物濫用防治協會第十七屆學術會議在廣州召開，為全國濫藥防治具權威的學術會議。該會議由中國藥物濫用防治協會主辦，台灣藥物濫用防治研究學會合辦，來自中國內地、台灣、香港和澳門的500餘名代表參加了會議，提交論文過百篇，規模空前。