2009 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System Data Released

HHS’ CDC’s DIVISION OF ADOLESCENT AND SCHOOL HEALTH RELEASES THE NEXT ROUND OF DATA (2009) FROM THE YOUTH RISK BEHAVIOR SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM (YRBSS)

On Thursday, June 3rd, at Noon, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC). Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) released the 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (MMW) Surveillance Summary and the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data. Both are available at www.cdc.gov/yrbss.

The YRBSS is the only surveillance system to monitor a wide range of priority health risk behaviors among youth. The YRBSS includes national, state, territorial, tribal, and local Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS) conducted biennially among representative samples of 9th through 12th grade students. The national survey, conducted by CDC, provides data representative of high school students in public and private schools in the United States. The state and local surveys, conducted by departments of health and education, provide data representative of public high school students in each state or local school district.  Since the system was implemented in 1991, the number of participating states has increased from 26 to 47 and the number of participating cities has increased from 11 to 23.

The MMWR Surveillance Summary released June 3rd includes results from the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey and results from 42 state and 20 local Youth Risk Behavior Surveys. The Surveillance Summary, updated fact sheets, 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey data file, and 2009 technical documentation are all available at www.cdc.gov/yrbss.

Youth Online, a web-based, YRBS data exploration system, has also been significantly updated and improved.  Important new features include the ability to look at data across all sites simultaneously, to run t-tests for subgroup differences, and to filter data by grade, sex, or race/ethnicity.  During the next few months, DASH will provide a series of webinars introducing the new Youth Online features and showing how they can be applied in program activities.  More information about the webinars will be available soon.  You may access the new Youth Online from <A href=”http://www.cdc.gov/yrbsswww.cdc.gov/yrbss<http://www.cdc.gov/yrbss>.

Additionally, DASH has created the YRBS Data Widget, a small web program that you can put right on an agency’s web page to help disseminate YRBS results quickly and conveniently.  It displays YRBS results from the site you choose for selected behaviors and provides links to the new and improved Youth Online for users who want more details.  More information about the YRBS Data Widget is available at www.cdc.gov/widgets<http://www.cdc.gov/widgets>.

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