The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) is an anonymous, volunteer survey of adolescents' health, safety and behaviors.

The YRBSS survey is given to adolescents in selected middle schools and high schools in Mississippi every two years. The survey asks questions about behaviors related to personal health and safety (e.g., bike helmet use), violence, sadness and attempted suicide, tobacco and alcohol use, marijuana and other drug use, sexual behaviors, body weight and nutrition, and physical activity. These behaviors, many of which are preventable, contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among youth.

Program Focus

• Obtain statistics and trends on the prevalence of health risk behaviors by race/ethnicity and sex
• Assess health behavior trends
• Help plan programs in the public school systems
• Support grant and funding data requests
• Influence policies and legislation to prevent risky behaviors
• Create substantiation for healthy practices in the schools
• Monitor a wide range of priority health risk behaviors of youth at the national, state, and local levels

Resources

• Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System
  More information on the YRBSS from the CDC
• Youth Online: Interactive YRBSS Data
  Query system for YRBSS data from all states
• Youth Tobacco Survey
  Surveys of tobacco use among Mississippi youth

Reports

• YRBSS Reports by Year