New Data to Tell Us How Kids are Doing. Results are Mixed
The results are in! Every other year, the majority of middle and high school students in Vermont take the Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). This is a national school-based survey that monitors behaviors and attitudes correlated with health outcomes, such as nutrition, physical activity, and substance use. The survey also asks questions about youth protective factors that can support positive outcomes. The full results from the survey that students in 6th - 12th grade took in fall of 2021 was just recently released and the full report for the Burlington district can be found here. We wanted to highlight a few initial findings from the report. Please keep in mind that this survey was collected in the middle of a pandemic and was also done at a different time of year than usual. As a result the data cannot be compared in the same way to previous years. We’ll be digging in more and sharing more specifics in the coming months.
The number of high school students reporting they had used an electronic vapor product, alcohol, or cannabis in the last 30 days was lower than last reported in 2019. Substance use rates were already much lower among middle school students than high school, but we did see minor decreases in alcohol, cannabis, and vapor product use for middle school as well.
20% of Burlington middle school students reported they felt sad or hopeless almost every day for 2 weeks or more. This number increased to 27% for BIPOC students and 34% for students who indicated they were lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender.
Students took another round of the YRBS survey in the spring of this year. You’ll notice that since the 2021 data was just barely released it will be a while before we see the results of that survey. Years ago our coalition decided that we needed data that would allow us to support a community response to trends in the data in a more timely way. We began working with Burlington School District staff to collect our own data. So, we are excited to announce that our 2023 Burlington School district youth survey data is now available.
Similar to what we saw in the data in 2021, in the 2023 data we are still seeing students reporting concerning information about mental health needs. Only 48% of middle school students reported they get the kind of help they need when they are “feeling sad, empty, hopeless, angry, or anxious.” That number is even more shocking for BHS students who reported they only get the help the need for those feelings about 32% of the time.
We did see reasons to be hopeful. Our efforts and the efforts of all of you to talk to kids about substance use are working. About 6 in 10 middle school students and around 5 in 10 high school students reported their parents had had at least one conversation with them about the risks of alcohol and drugs use in the last 12 months. And it helped! The data showed that more middle schoolers are understanding the negative impacts that substance use can have at their age. Keep talking about it.
We are still combing through data and will be continuing to use it to help us better understand the needs of youth in Burlington and how we can support them.