The Best Source for National Data on Youth: Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS)
Listen to the Common Good Data Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
If you work with youth, especially in mental health and substance use, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is an invaluable resource. This survey collects data from students in grades 9–12, revealing key health behaviors and experiences that significantly impact adolescent health.
When you understand these trends, you’ll get a clearer picture of what young people are facing, which makes it easier to create programs that address their specific needs.
In this episode, you’ll be guided through a virtual walkthrough of the YRBS website to show you how to navigate the site effectively so you can easily find the data you need most.
You’ll hear:
(02:36) What is the YRBS and why is it so important
(06:21) What new data from the 2023 release that professionals in the helping professions space should be aware of
(13:09) How to access the reports and explore the YRBSS onlineResources Mentioned
Resources Mentioned
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Drew Reynolds: Hello, everyone. Drew Reynolds here with the Common Good Data podcast. Today, I'm excited to talk about a really great source of data that I'd like to share with this audience, and that's the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. That's a survey that's developed by the CDC and is a really critical tool for anyone who's working with youth and is focused on the challenges facing youth, especially for those who are interested in mental health, substance use behaviors, and other related topics.
Uh, it's really so important to have access to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey Uh, survey, because it was really the only source of nationally representative data that looks at some key factors that are associated with youth. So I'm excited to talk about this great survey, how you can access the data, and some recent results from 2023 that I think are very eye opening.
Uh, for those who are working with you that really, I think the whole public should be aware of, uh, some of the data that came out of the survey. But before we dive in today, I want to share a new resource that's [00:01:00] available to all the listeners on this podcast and the broader public called the Data and Evaluation Made Simple Toolkit. It's a toolkit designed specifically for mental health and substance use prevention.
Professionals, and it focuses on how you can use data for three main things. Things like community assessments, program evaluation, and strategy and planning. You can access it for free, no cost. Just head over to commongooddata. com slash simple. Again, that's commongooddata. com slash simple, and you'll find access to that great toolkit.
Now, before we go into the YRBS, I do want to share two things. First is that I'm going to be sharing some challenging information and data, and we'll discuss some heavy topics today. So, if you find yourself having a strong reaction to what you hear on this podcast, please don't hesitate to reach out to a mental health professional to seek assistance, or as always, 988, which is the National Crisis Hotline.
In addition, I'll also be doing a quick review, um, and uh, online of some YRBS data. And so I'm actually going to share my screen, uh, [00:02:00] as I'm working on it. And so if you want to be able to follow along with the visuals, I encourage you to listen over on the YouTube channel. Uh, you can still follow along, I think perfectly fine on the podcast, but check out YouTube if you'd like to see the visuals.
Okay, so today I'm going to begin with a history and overview in context of the YRBS, what the survey is and kind of how it, the sort of context of why the survey is so important. We'll then talk a little bit about some data that's new from the 2023 release that I think is really important for the public to be aware of, particularly professionals who are working in the helping professions space.
Uh, and then we'll talk a little bit about how to access reports, um, and explore the data online. So first an overview, the MyRBS is designed as a national school based survey, so it occurs all across the country and is surveying students who are in schools. And it's done every other year, biannually, to monitor health behaviors in youth.
And they focus on a variety of different health behaviors, focused on things like injury, things like Wearing a seat belt [00:03:00] or fighting, things like that. Um, sexual behaviors is included in the survey. Alcohol and other drug use, uh, tobacco and vaping use is included on the survey. Dietary behaviors, physical behaviors, even ask about sleep.
Um, and so there's all kinds of different things that we, uh, ask questions about on the survey. And the idea here is with this survey. that the CDC conducts here is to really highlight the need, um, for data on youth behaviors to help really inform public health and policy, uh, particularly in schools, health departments, people who are working in prevention mental health, having information in the data that people need to be able to adequately serve and respond to the challenges facing youth.
Now, in 2023, the survey has added some new questions, which I think are very, very interesting. They ask questions on social media use. Um, Experiences of Racism at School, Adverse Childhood Experiences, uh, which continues to gain a lot of attraction and interest, um, from, from scholars and practitioners. Uh, [00:04:00] also Transgender Identity, for the first time asked in this survey in 2023.
And then consent for sexual contact as well as unfair discipline at school. So these new topics are responding to, uh, what practitioners and, and researchers and people are seeing in the field, working with youth, recognizing that these are some emerging, uh, trends, um, emerging new ways of thinking about youth and also challenges that youth are facing.
And so they've added those questions to the survey. Now the survey focuses on middle and high school students, and it's done nationally across the country. And it also is done in a way to gather. Representative data at the state level for a lot of states. And so you can actually go on there and find data not just nationally, but what's actually going on in your state as well.
And there are some cities and school districts that also have representative data. So they do an oversampling in a number of cities and school districts to allow them to have Additional information, uh, to be able to understand what's going on locally to them. Now, one thing that's interesting, I read through the methodology section [00:05:00] of the 2023 survey and participation in the YRBS peaked in 2019 and 2021.
Uh, and actually in 2023, we had a drop off in participation. Some states have dropped out. Some municipalities are racking out and we're seeing kind of a decrease in, in uptake and participation.
Now, the context for this is that school surveys. There are There are changing state policies on school surveys and the ability to survey youth in schools, and some of those policies have changed around consent. A lot of states are starting to require active parental consent in schools, and then there are some that have some laws that make it challenging in other ways to administer school based surveys.
And so I think some districts and states have opted to not participate in light of some of those changes, those legal changes at the state level. And I think that there's also a general, you know, we're in a tension in our society right now as we're trying to weigh the need to have access to data and information around youth, but [00:06:00] also the importance of protecting youth and for protecting youth.
Um, and those two, uh, you know, it's kind of like a pendulum, uh, swinging in terms of the values and emphasis and policy and it changes state to state. So, what we are seeing is that there is a slightly drop off, um, in, uh, participation in the YRBS in the 2023 survey. So, if you go online and you see that your state isn't listed, that might be the reason why.
Now, some data from 2023. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, Um, kind of how the data are shared. So on the website for the YRBS, which I'll share in a few minutes, they have the actual data we can go into the Explorer and look at the data and use drop downs and other fields to kind of look at data in different ways.
That's using the YRBS Explorer, and I'll share some information about that. There's also reports that they put together, and there were three of them that came out recently that I think are very interesting. One of them I saw in some news outlets as well, that are just focusing on a particular topic. Um, the first one of these reports that I'll share with you all today had to [00:07:00] do with, um, the questions that they added around, uh, gender identity.
And again, this is the first time that the YRBS has included questions that had a more expansive understanding of gender identity. gender identity and ask questions specifically to identify trans youth, trans youth and questioning youth. And what they found that is overall in the country, 3. 3 percent of U.
S. high school students identified as transgender and 2. 2 percent identified as questioning. That's at the high school level. And then, uh, some data from that study are from the survey showed that transgender and questioning students have very different experiences uh, in school on a variety of health indicators.
Now this is something we, we knew, but this isn't the first time it's really being shared and displayed quantitatively at a national level. And the report showed that students, um, transgender and questioning students experience a higher prevalence of violence, poor mental health, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, Um, Unstable [00:08:00] Housing, um, and also had a lower prevalence of school connectedness, uh, compared to cisgender peers.
And so, and that, those gaps can be really, really big, right? So compared to 8. 5 percent of cisgender male students, 25. 3 percent of trans students and 26. 4 percent of questioning students skipped school because they felt unsafe. So you know, you can see that there's a huge gap there. between, um, transgender youth and cisgender youth, uh, with respect to just feeling safe at school.
In addition, 40 percent of transgender and questioning youth reported being bullied at school, 69 percent of questioning and 72 percent of trans students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. And that, I think that number is around 40 percent nationally. So you see it's a huge gap, uh, in disparity, uh, on that particular indicator.
And then 26 percent of transgender and questioning students attended suicide in the past year compared with 5 percent cisgender male and 11 percent of cisgender female students. And so what we're seeing is a [00:09:00] huge health concern with a, um, a group of students being emerging for the first time in the data at the national level.
And so I think for practitioners who are working with trans youth in school settings and youth programs, uh, child and family programs, it's really important to know these data because it helps underscore the potential risks that youth, um, you know, who are transgender and questioning and who might be experiencing some sense of social marginalization as a result.
And that these health risks are potential challenges or consequences that, um, uh, uh, that they're experiencing. There was also a report put together on social media use. And, uh, I thought that was a really interesting one that they added the question that asks about social media use. And it found that 77%, so roughly three and four of students, reported frequent social media use, and that frequent social media use was associated with higher prevalence of bullying victimization at school, persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, and some suicide risk among students.
And so, [00:10:00] you know, this data are, it's a snapshot in time, And so, it's not going to be able to establish a causal relationship between social media use and some of these negative outcomes, but it just shows that they're associated. And there's a whole debate in the research about, you know, does social media cause these things, or do these things cause social media use, and back and forth, and, and how that all comes together.
But either way, what we do see is that those two do seem to be linked. And so there needs to be attention paid to how youth are using social media and the potential consequences or negative health effects that that can have for them, particularly when they're engaged in frequent social media use.
Lastly, there was a third report put together on ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences. And these adverse childhood experiences are, are experiences of, of trauma or violence uh, in childhood that are associated with negative health outcomes over the life course. And it found in this nationally representative survey of youth that ACEs were common, which with approximately three in four students [00:11:00] experiencing one ACE or more.
Um, now where I think the, the research has shown is that when a youth experiences four or more ACEs, that's when you start to see the more, um, Uh, the, the big jump in, in health consequences over the life course. And they found that approximately one in five students, or 18. 5 percent of those youth, uh, surveyed in the 2023 survey were experiencing four or more adverse childhood experiences.
And that has huge consequences for health over the life course. Um, and that same report also showed that 90 percent of suicidal behaviors, 84. 3 percent of current prescription opioid misuse, and 65 percent of, um, of persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness were all associated with experiencing one or more, uh, adverse childhood experience.
So what's that saying is, is that Um, having a child, uh, having an adverse childhood experience is associated, like almost all, if, if, if a child is, um, has, having [00:12:00] suicidal behaviors or, uh, you, having prescription opioid misuse or persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, that's highly correlated, um, with having an experience of an adverse childhood experience, right?
And so the report then makes the case that, you know, to be able to engage in preventative, Strategies and programs and services that can help prevent ACEs are going to have all kinds of positive health effects, um, youth over the life's course. That's what the research is continuing to show, and that's a little bit about what the argument is being made here.
It isn't being proven in the data, but is, um, being kind of, uh, uh, uh, argued for, uh, in light of the cross sectional data that you see in the YRBS. Now there's other reports as well that I think are really great to see. I'll show them to you in just a minute as we hop onto the web to see them that focus on youth mental health in general, experiences of racism in school.
There's some new questions related to that, which is really important, um, and more. So I encourage you to check out some of those reports and explore the data for yourself. All right, so that's an overview of some of the information that's new in the 2023 [00:13:00] report and that I think is important for the public to be aware of, but let's dive into actually looking at the data so you can get a sense of how to explore it.
So I'll go ahead and share my screen for those of you listening on podcast, you can find this on YouTube as well, but you'll be able to follow along as I talk through it as well. Okay, so. You can begin, um, by going to the, uh, Youth Risk Behavior, uh, Surveillance System, the YRBSS. I call it YRBS, I think that's often how it's called, but there's actually two S's in there.
Um, and you can access that at cdc. gov slash YRBS. Yeah, you'll see that right there, the single S. Um, And down here you'll see there's YRBS reports and publications. I think that's a good place just to do some reading and to familiarize yourself with the survey and some of the questions. They've got some great reports that are put together by really qualified researchers.
So you can check out those reports and refer to them and cite them and share them with people who are interested in taking a look. Now I actually [00:14:00] really like the YRBS Explorer. It's a really great tool that you can use to be able to access data and to start to use some of their filters to find aspects of the data that are important to you.
So when I click on YRBS Explorer, you'll see that a series of questions comes up, um, around, you have graph and table options to look at some of the different questions that were offered in the survey. So you can see all kinds of, uh, risk behaviors here associated with questions, and you can filter them over here by the different, on the left hand side by, um, topic.
Uh, I'll go ahead and pick one, um, Let's see here. Let's go to, uh, tobacco use and let's say ever smoked or currently smokes cigarettes. Right? And I'll click on grass because I think the grass are really interesting. You can see here high school students who currently smoke cigarettes from 1991 to 2023.
And you see on the national data, we do have national data going all the way back to 1991 for the YRBS, which is amazing. Um, and you see it kind of a little bit [00:15:00] of a rise in the, in the nineties and then since about peaking in 1997. dropping, um, from a high point of 36. 4 percent in 1997, all the way down to 3.
5 in 2023. Now that's a real victory for public health, uh, to be able to, to have, um, you know, either, uh, prevented or delayed onset of use of cigarettes because of the associated health risks with them, uh, over time. And so you can kind of see that laid out here. Now, if I click on location up here, I can actually go down at the state level and take a look at different states.
Let's take a look at Kentucky, for example. Now you'll see here in Kentucky, they had data in 97 and then started in 2023 and have complete data moving forward. And you'll see this will be common in the YRBS is that the state will have, not necessarily have, uh, participation at all, uh, of the years since 1991.
So depending on your state, you might see different data. But you see a similar trend here. Uh, with higher rates, um, actually 1997 higher than national rate here, uh, 47 percent and going all the way down to 5. 3. [00:16:00] What's cool too is you can click compare to the United States and you can see how a state compares to national averages.
So Kentucky was a little bit higher. Uh, then national averages, I guess, being a traditional, uh, tobacco producing state, uh, may be associated with that. But you can see that it's a little bit higher, um, relative to the national average. So you can take a look at those comparisons, which can be helpful to understand where your state, where your locality may compare.
Uh, you can also take a look at some local school districts, a handful of local school districts, Participated in an oversampling, what it is to say is the OIRBS was offered to more schools in a school district to help be able to show representative data from that school district. Let's take a look at, let's see here, let's take a look at, um, let's do Houston, Texas.
And you can see here, in the same way, you've got Not necessarily all years, but going back [00:17:00] pretty far in 95 to 2023, you can do another national comparison there as well. And you see the rates are lower for tobacco use, uh, relative to national averages. So it's a useful little tool to be able to kind of see the, uh, indicators and observe them over time through these graphs.
I think they're so great. Let's pick another question. I'll take off tobacco use here and let's take a look at other health topics. And here's the question on use social media at least several times a day.
Okay, now we know for this question, as I alluded to earlier in the survey, this question was not asked in 1991, right? And actually this is the first year, 2023, that they asked about social media use. So you're not going to see a graph here that's going to look at that question, how it's evolved over time.
But what it does show is your percentages and it breaks it down by some of the different, uh, um, disaggregated, uh, uh, indicators, things like sex, race, uh, grade level, sexual identity, um, and others here that you can [00:18:00] kind of take a look at to get an understanding of, of where you might see, um, differences and things that you might want to be paying attention to depending on, you know, the nature of your community.
And so I think you have some, you know, here you have overall 77%, um, who have a higher, uh, You use social media at least several times a day, uh, around three quarters of youth who do that, and then you see how that goes up a little bit too, when you start to look at some of these other different, um, categories, right?
It's higher for female youth, for example, than male youth. So that's one. Let's take another look at another question and let's look at, um, let's see here. Um,
ever felt that they were treated badly because of their race or ethnicity? Again, this is also a new question that was added on, uh, because of the, you know, well established research that, [00:19:00] um, there's a connection between race and, and health outcomes. Oh, actually, it looks like it doesn't have it showed up here.
You know, there is the report on this, so you can check it out in the report, but it might not be necessarily on this, um, area of the explorer. So anyways, you can check out all kinds of uh, topics and questions in here to, and kind of take a look at how those things might be associated with um, you know, uh, how that, that trend looks like in your community.
I'll take a look at marijuana here for example. You can also click on the tables button like I do right here, and this is an example of Ever Having Used Marijuana, and as it loads with the table view, you can get some nice breakdowns, um, by, um, gender identity here. Uh, you also have those by race, grade, sexual identity, um, uh, sex or sexual contacts, transgender identity as well.
And so it helps kind of break things down a little bit by some of those demographic indicators depending, again, on who you serve. It can be really helpful to be able to look at those different [00:20:00] things, and you'll see that there are big differences. Um, based on things like gender and race and class, um, sorry, and, and grade level.
Uh, so you'll see that, that quite a bit here as well. Um, then if I go over to the view graph, you can kind of flip back and forth between graphs and as well, then back and forth to tables. So, that is an example of the YRBS, I really encourage you to go check it out. Go onto the CDC's YRBS page. If you just Google CDC YRBS, you'll find it. If you get, if you forget the URL and you'll be able to see information that I think is really helpful as you are thinking about different ways that you can help to, uh, improve the wellbeing of children and youth, uh, in your locality, and of course, across the country, as this is a national survey.
So thanks so much. If you want to learn more about this, we're going to have some resources on this page for the podcast at our episode. Check it out at www. commongooddata. com slash podcast. And I look forward to continuing conversations with you about data evaluation and all related topics in the coming [00:21:00] weeks.
Thanks so much.
