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Highlighting News Stories for Our Town for the week of June 24, 2002 |
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Risk Behavior Among High School Students
Every two years, the Department of Education in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts conducts a survey of high school students in our public schools.
This survey is designed to ascertain the extent to which youngsters engage in risk behavior that might affect their health now and in the future. Behaviors patterns cover the use of tobacco, illegal drugs, alcohol, and the extent to which youngsters are sexually active and physically aggressive.
The last survey was conducted in 2001 and the results have just been published.
Here are some of the major findings.
1. Tobacco use has diminished. In contrast to 1995 when 72 % of students had tried smoking tobacco, only 62 % of students now reported trying smoking. 2. The use of alcohol has remained about the same. In fact, 81 % of students reported having had at least one drink and 28% had their first drink before age 13. And, 33 % of the students reported at least one episode of binge drinking in the month prior to the survey. In fact, 7 % reported frequent binge drinking. 3. Relative to sexual activity, 44 % of students reported having had sexual intercourse. For those youngsters, 58 % reported using a condom the last time they were sexually active. 4. Relative to being overweight or not, just 10 % of students were actually over weight, one-third thought they were over weight and were actively trying to lose weight. 5. Education is important in these health matters. Students who were taught about HIV/AIDS prevention reported lower levels of every sexual risk behavior than those who had no such education. 6. Relative to illegal drug use, 54 % of the students reported using an illegal drug. 49 % of these students indicated that marijuana was the exclusive drug.
Summary
This survey was conducted with more than 4000 students in grades 9 –12 throughout 64 public schools chosen at random. The results will be relevant and applicable to all schools.
Details may
be found at the DOE web site.
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