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CDC: Many risky behaviors decreased among teens in the past decade
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Many high school students engage in behaviors that increase their risk for leading causes of morbidity and mortality. The latest numbers from the CDC indicate that some of these behaviors have decreased in the last decade, including the number of sexually active adolescents, while others have increased, including the number of adolescents who do not use condoms, according to findings from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Report presented during a telebriefing today.
The 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System summarizes 104 health-risk behaviors among more than 13,000 US high school students. The report, authored by Laura Kann, PhD, of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, and colleagues, includes data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System surveys and data from surveys conducted in 42 states and 21 large urban school districts. Surveys were administered between September 2012 and December 2013.
Cigarette smoking rates have decreased to the lowest levels since 1991, as the study findings show 15.7% of high school students smoked cigarettes. Despite this, smokeless tobacco rates have not changed since 1999, while 8.8% of high school students reportedly used smokeless tobacco.
Although the report, published in MMWR, does not include data on e-cigarette use, researchers are particularly concerned with the increasing popularity of e-cigarettes.
“E-cigarette use is skyrocketing, and we’re concerned about that. We’re particularly concerned with e-cigarettes re-glamorizing smoking traditional cigarettes and maybe making it more complicated to enforce smoke-free laws that protect all non-smokers,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD, said during the telebriefing.
Thomas Frieden
Of the 64.7% of students who drove a car, 41.4% texted or emailed while driving; 34.9% consumed alcohol; and 23.4% used marijuana.
Nearly half of high school students reported engaging in sexual intercourse, and 15% had sexual intercourse with four or more partners during their life. However, the number of sexually active high school students decreased from 38% in 1991 to 34% in 2013. Among sexually active students, condom use has decreased from 63% in 2003 to 59.1% in 2013. This decline follows a period of increased condom use during the 1990s and early 2000s.
The number of high school students involved in a physical fight at least once in the last year decreased from 42% in 1991 to 25% in 2013. Fights on school property have decreased by almost half, according to researchers. Sixteen percent of high school students were in at least one fight on school property in 1993 vs. 8% in 2013. Despite this, 14.8% of study participants were electronically bullied; 19.6% were bullied on school property; and 8% attempted suicide.
From 2003 to 2013, the number of high school students who used a computer three or more hours per day, for non-school related work, increased from 22% to 41.3%. Conversely, the number of students who watch three or more hours of television on an average school day has decreased from 43% in 1999 to 32% in 2013.
Regarding nutrition, 5% of students had not consumed fruit and 6.6% had not eaten vegetables a week prior to study enrollment. However, the number of students who drink soda has decreased from 34% in 2007 to 27% in 2013.
“There’s no one simple solution to reducing the prevalence of health risk behavior from high school students. But we owe it to our kids to help them make healthy choices easier. Families, schools, communities, and young people all play a part working together for the next generation. It’s not too much to ask that every kid born in this country reaches adulthood without an infection they will have to deal with for the rest of their life, without nicotine addiction, and at a healthy weight,” Frieden said.
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