Current US high school students are less likely to engage in many health risk behaviours than high school students in the early 1990s, according to the 2007 National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey (YRBS), released in June by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although the study documents substantial improvements over time in many health risk behaviours among all high school students, Hispanic students remain at greater risk for certain health related behaviours and have not matched the progress made over time by black students and white students in reducing some sexual risk behaviors.
The 2007 National YRBS found that Hispanic students were more likely than either black students or white students to attempt suicide, use cocaine, heroin or ecstasy, ride with a driver who had been drinking alcohol, or go 24 hours or more without eating in an effort to lose weight or to drink alcohol on school property.
National, state and local YRBS studies are conducted every two years among high school students throughout the United States. These surveys monitor health risk behaviors that lead to unintentional injuries and violence; tobacco, alcohol and other drug use; and sexual behaviors that can lead to unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection. The surveys also monitor high school students’ dietary behaviors, physical inactivity, and the prevalence of obesity and asthma.
More than 14,000 U.S. high school students participated in the 2007 National YRBS. The 2007 report includes national data and data from surveys conducted in 39 states and 22 large urban school districts.
The National YRBS is one of three US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sponsored surveys that provide data on substance abuse among youth. The others are the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), and the Monitoring the Future (MTF) Study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. MTF tracks substance use among students in the 8th, 10th and 12th grades.
