Purpose: To assess whether young people not engaging in risk behaviors do better than their risk-taking peers.
Methods: Data were drawn from the GenerationFRee study, a cross-sectional in-school survey including 5179 youths aged 15-24. Six risk behaviors were studied: smoking, alcohol misuse, cannabis use, use of other illegal drugs, violent behavior and antisocial behavior. A score obtained after adding the behaviors permitted to divide the subjects into Abstainers (score=0; N=1920) and Risk-takers (score>0; N=3259). Groups were compared on personal, familial, academic characteristics. All variables significant at the bivariate level were included in a logistic regression using Risk-takers as the reference category. Results are given as adjusted Odds Ratios (aOR) with 95% confidence interval.