Table 6.

Studies examining the association between SES and cannabis, and illicit drug use.

SN	Authors	Methodology description						Findings	Key strengths and limitations	Quality score
		Study design	Sample size (n)	Continent/country	Age range	SES measure	Methodology
1	Simetin et al. (2013)	Cross-sectional	1,601	Croatia	15 years	SES	Multi-level logistic regression	Adolescents from high SES backgrounds had a higher likelihood of cannabis consumption (OR: 1.49; SE: 0.22) compared to those from low SES.	High-SES adolescents have more disposable income, making cannabis and other drugs easier to afford. However, the association between socioeconomic factors and risk behaviors may be influenced by adolescents’ relative resilience to socioeconomic inequalities	8
2	Doku et al. (2012)	Cross-sectional	1,195	Ghana	12–18 years	SES	Logistic regression	Adolescents from low parental SES were more likely to use marijuana (OR: 12.4, 95% CI: 3.7–41.0) and illicit drugs (OR: 15.9, 95% CI: 3.7–67.8) than those from high parental SES.	Economic pressures can increase teenage stress and anxiety. They may be more tempted to utilize drugs. However, data was collected using self-report measures and utilized a cross-sectional research design. So, it cannot establish a causal association and there might be a chance of biases in the findings.	7
3	Lee et al. (2018)	Longitudinal	3,395	USA	12–16 years	Parental education		Adolescents with lower parental education were more likely to use illicit drugs (β: 0.08, 95% CI: 0.004–0.158) compared to those with higher parental education	Inequality in information and peer pressure enhance illicit drug use. However, the findings were distorted due to the measurement bias.	9