Introduction

Due to biological and psychosocial factors, adolescence is a stage during which individuals are particularly vulnerable to the risks of substance use and abuse (Steinberg, 2007). In Uruguay, the rates of adolescent substance use are high when compared to those in other countries (CICAD/OEA 2006). A 2007 survey of Uruguayan students enrolled in Secondary Education showed that 70 percent had experimented with alcohol by the age of 13 and almost all students had consumed alcohol at least once by the age of 17. The rate of alcohol use in the past 30 days was 33 percent for students in the second grade of secondary school, 61 percent for students in the 4th year and 75 percent for those in the 6th year. Around half of these students reported drinking to intoxication or binge drinking in the past 30 days. With respect to other drugs, 25 percent reported using tobacco and 6 percent reported using marihuana in the past 30 days and 9 percent reported consuming marijuana in the past year (Junta Nacional de Drogas, 2008).

Adolescents’ fast and early adoption of new information technologies creates important opportunities for engaging youths in preventive services via e-health. The Internet and other ICT technologies, such as mobile phone SMS, constitute cost effective vehicles to access youth in a widespread manner and create opportunities for the use of interactive technologies that can increase students’ skills and information assimilation (Marsch, Bickel and Badger, 2006). A number of preventive substances use interventions have been introduced in developed countries through the Internet with relative success (Bosworth et al., 1994; Marsch et al., 2006; Pahwa and Schoech, 2008). While there is little evidence of success of similar programs in less developed countries (Kaplan, 2006), the potential of e-health preventive efforts in Uruguay acquires a special dimension when considering the recent introduction of a national education plan aimed at providing each student in the country with a laptop computer with Internet access (Plan Ceibal, “One Laptop per Child”). By the end of 2010 all students in Uruguay's elementary public schools as well as all students enrolled in the first year of secondary public schools are expected to have a laptop.