About a week ago, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention published a press release highlighting recent data and statistics on the nation’s adolescent/young adult population- most specifically high school students. The data particularly focuses on the health trends and behaviors among high school students including but not limited to sexual health, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, and behaviors, the occurrence of violence, housing insecurity, and other systemic factors such as parental involvement and monitoring. The data also pays special homage to how factors such as age, gender, orientation, and race may change one’s experiences. The study includes 10-year trends that can really be beneficial for further insight into what youth experiences look like in order to better inform our intervention and prevention practices in order to achieve the best efficacy with problem-solving.

                Ranging for 2011-2021, some key findings include that while overall adolescent health and well-being are improving (risky sexual behavior), substance use, and occurrences of bullying within schools are continuing to decrease. However, almost all other categories of protective sexual behavior, violence mental health and suicidal thoughts, and behaviors have worsened significantly. In fact, nearly 1 in 3 adolescents within the study (30%) considered attempting suicide—up nearly 60% from a decade ago.

                With this alarming information, this data is indeed a reflection of the crisis going on with our youth- even in our community. It is a fact that resources, especially mental health resources, are scarce in nature. This is even more true for rural communities such as Hodgenville. Within the coming months more information about what we are doing within our schools and community will be coming to LCHAT! This is to include mentor and peer support groups, drug and vape education for parents, educators, and students as well as ways to get involved and become proactive in our youth’s lives in order to combat this issue. 

Important Links for More Information and Statistics:

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/index.htm