Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) is an American biennial survey of adolescent health risk and health protective behaviors such as smoking, drinking, drug use, diet, and physical activity conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The YRBSS is a key public health monitoring program in the United States that tracks various health behaviors in high school students, including national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) and local surveys conducted by states, tribes, territories, and school districts. It surveys students in grades 9–12 at their high schools. It is one of the major sources of information about these risk behaviors, and is used by federal agencies to track drug use, sexual behavior, and other risk behaviors.
The YRBSS was created in 1990 in order to monitor progress towards protecting youth from HIV infection. There are only two repeated nationally representative surveys which give all the information in existence about youth risk behavior; YRBSS and the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future (MTF). In 2021, these surveys were conducted amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the need for timely data to understand shifts in youth health risks and meet evolving public health needs. Every academic research study which evaluates national US trends over time in adolescent smoking, drinking, drug use, sexual activity, or other health behaviors is based on these two studies. There are no other nationally representative sources of information about these behaviors other than YRBSS and MTF.
Methodology
The YRBSS is the official source of information about adolescent risk behaviors used to evaluate federal, state, and local public health initiatives to decrease these risk behaviors. The survey targets students from grades 9 through 12 attending both public and private high schools across the United States.
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