Prevalence and correlates of truancy in the US: results from a national sample
Open accessAbstract
Truancy has been a persistent problem in the United States for more than 100 years. Although truancy is commonly reported as a risk factor for substance use, delinquency, dropout, and a host of other negative outcomes for youth, there has been surprisingly little empirical investigation into understanding the causes and correlates of truancy using large, nationally representative samples. Using the adolescent sample ( N = 17,482) of the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), this study presents the prevalence of truancy and examines individual, school engagement, parental, and behavioral correlates of truancy. Overall, 11% of adolescents between the ages of 12–17 reported skipping school in the past 30 days. Results from multinomial logistic regression models indicate skipping school was robustly associated with an increased probability of reporting externalizing behaviors, less parental involvement, and engagement and lower grades in school. Implications for theory, prevention, and policy are discussed.
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An accumulation of risk/contextual factors appears to exacerbate risk of school attendance problems and thus may be more evident in Tier 3 than Tier 2 cases.
“An accumulation of risk/contextual factors appears to exacerbate risk of school attendance problems (Catalano et al., 2012; Ingul et al., 2019) and thus may be more evident in Tier 3 than Tier 2 cases (Vaughn et al., 2013).”
From Reconciling Contemporary Approaches to School Attendance and School Absenteeism: Toward Promotion and Nimble Response, Global Policy Review and Implementation, and Future Adaptability (Part 1) (2019) · cites this paper as Vaughn et al., 2013
The Results report stronger associations with several risk behaviors among high-level than moderate truants, supporting the suggested difference in risk profiles. But the paper compares frequencies of skipping school, not Tier 3 and Tier 2 cases, and does not establish how those tiers correspond to its groups. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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“More than half of the first visitors of @ease skipped at least one day of school in the last three months, whereas in the general population, only 11–13% of the adolescents skipped at least one hour in the last month (Stevens et al., 2018; Vaughn et al., 2013).”
BackgroundDifferences between risk factors for truancy and delinquency in Dutch adolescents
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- Authors
- Vaughn, M. G., Maynard, B. R., Salas‐Wright, C. P., Perron, B. E., & Abdon, A.
- Affiliations
- Saint Louis University (US)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- University of Michigan (US)
- University of the Philippines Manila (PH)
- Corresponding author
- Vaughn, Michael G.
- Venue
- Journal of Adolescence
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2013-04-23
- Volume
- 36
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 767-776
- ISSN
- 0140-1971 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9254
- PMC
- PMC3713173
- OpenAlex
- W2052980134
- Cited by
- 243
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 83.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Adolescence (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P50HD052117)
- Institute of Education Sciences (R324A100022, R324B080008)
- Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk
- Greater Texas Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Youth Substance Use and School Attendance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Crime Patterns and Interventions
- Social Sciences › Education › Educational Outcomes and Influences
- Keywords
- truancy, school skipping, externalizing problems, parental involvement, school engagement, academic performance, substance use risk, delinquency, school dropout
- MeSH terms
- Absenteeism, Adolescent, Age Factors, Alcoholism, Anxiety Disorders, Attitude, Marijuana Abuse, Data Collection, Depressive Disorder, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Internal-External Control, Male, Risk Factors, Sex Factors, Social Identification, Social Support, Socioeconomic Factors, Statistics as Topic, Illicit Drugs, Students, United States, Comorbidity, Parenting, Substance-Related Disorders
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