More children living with substance abusers than thought

Researchers from the National Addiction Centre and Criminal Justice Research Centre found that existing estimates of there being 250,000 - 350,000 children of problem drug users in the UK and 780,000 - 1.3 million children of adults with an alcohol problem were based on treatment data or extrapolated from other countries.

By analysing five UK household surveys, the researchers estimated that 30 per cent of under-16s (3.3 to 3.5 million) lived with at least one binge drinking parent, while 22 per cent (2.6 million) lived with a hazardous drinker. They said that 335,000 children lived with a drug dependent parent.

The research, published in BMC Public Health said that although "considerable policy investment" had been made in addressing the needs of children living with substance misusers, the underlying evidence had fallen short.

"For policy and commissioning responses to adapt to meet the needs of both parental substance misusers and their children, we first need to understand the nature and scale of the problem. Without knowing the number of potentially at-risk families, we are unable to assist them until they come to the attention of agencies at crisis point," it said.