A Quarter of Children Have a Parent With Substance Use Disorder, a Study Finds
By Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR
Published May 13, 2025
“Nearly 19 million children in the United States have at least one parent with a substance use disorder, according to a new study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. And a significant number of those children have a parent whose addiction is moderate or severe as opposed to mild, the study finds.
The number amounts to 1 in 4 children with a parent who has addiction.“
“We also found that 7.6 million children live in a household with a parent that has either a moderate or severe substance use disorder,” says study author Sean Esteban McCabe, director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health at the University of Michigan. “And 3.4 million live with a parent with multiple substance use disorders.”
McCabe and his team also found that more than 6 million children have a parent with a mental health condition in addition to a substance use disorder.”
