A Statewide Representative Estimate of Youth Substance Use Disorder Recovery (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED Although recovery is a central tenet of the U.S. substance use disorder (SUD) service delivery system, research on youth recovery remains significantly underdeveloped. Notably, no representative surveys exist anywhere in the world that currently assess recovery status among secondary school-aged youth (ages 14-18). This article presents the first statewide representative estimate of youth in recovery, derived from a large Midwestern state in the United States. We used data from the 2024 Illinois Youth Survey (IYS), a weighted statewide representative survey of Illinois youth. We examined the prevalence of youth in recovery per the widely-used item “Do you consider yourself to be in recovery?” We also ran descriptive analyses to better understand the characteristics of youth in recovery. We found that 5.1% (95% CI: [4.3 : 5.8]) of participating youth identified as being in recovery. Among those in recovery, there were slightly more males (54%), and the average age of recovering youth was 16.57. Youth in recovery were demographically diverse, and a majority received free and reduced lunch. Thus, efforts to address financial recovery capital may be particularly important for this population. This study offers the first population-based estimate of youth recovery prevalence and underscores the importance of incorporating recovery status into major surveys to improve recovery support systems.