The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) recently released the 2015 national, state, and large urban school district Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) results, which summarize input from more than 15,000 students in grades 9-12 in schools across the nation. The YRBS monitors six categories of priority health-risk behaviors among high school students, including sexual risk behaviors that contribute to HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases (STD), and pregnancy.
The report shows progress in some areas of sexual risk behaviors while other areas reveal concerning behavioral trends that continue to put young people at risk. In addition to monitoring sexual risk behaviors among youth, YRBS serves as a platform for the rest of CDC and partners in public health and education to measure progress toward achieving 21 national health objectives for Healthy People 2020 and other program and policy indicators; assess trends in priority health-risk behaviors among high school students; and evaluate the impact of broad school and community interventions at the national, state, and local levels.
The release includes:
- an MMWR Surveillance Summary that includes results from the 2015 National YRBS and from 37 state and 19 large urban school district YRBSs
- new fact sheets and summary documents
- an updated version of Youth Online – a web-based data system that allows users to view and analyze national, state, and large urban school district YRBS results
- public-use datasets and technical documentation
