Nearly 19 million children in the United States have at least one parent with a substance use disorder, according to a recently released study (Source: A Quarter of Children Have a Parent with Substance Use Disorder (SUD), a Study Finds, NPR, May 13, 2025).
The estimate in the study, published in JAM230A Pediatrics, amounts to 1 in 4 children with a parent who has an addiction.
The study also estimates that 7.6 million children live in a household with a parent that has either a moderate or severe SUD.
“If one-quarter of kids in the U.S. have a parent with a SUD, that tells us that every day in our clinics we are encountering many, if not dozens of families that are affected by SUDs,” said Scott Hadland, MD, MPH, chief of adolescent medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, who wasn’t involved in the new study. “And we need to be poised and ready to help support those families.”
The study’s main finding is significantly higher than previous estimates (7 million in a study originally published in 2022).
The new study used data from the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a federal survey that estimated the prevalence of substance use and mental health disorders based on the most updated criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5). The national survey is managed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, but the team in charge of the survey was let go as part of the recent reduction in workforce. It is unclear how the cuts will affect the future of the survey.
