Risky Behavior on the Wane among US High School Students

According to a report by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there has been a substantial improvement in many behaviors amongst high school students. US health officials described Wednesday how Hispanic high school students were more likely to engage in risky health behaviors, including drug use and attempted suicide, than their white or black peers. Hispanic students also remain at higher risk for some risky sexual behaviors than their other peers.

This is what the director of the Division of Adolescent and School Health at CDC, Howell Wechsler, had to say during a telephonic conference, “…While large numbers of high school students continue to engage in behaviors that place their health at risk, the percentage of students engaging in many of these risk behaviors is lower today than it was in the early 1990s.”

Wechsler went on to add, “However, our Hispanic students remain at greater risk than white and black students for certain health-related behaviors and have not matched the progress made over time by black and white students in reducing some sexual risk behaviors.”

However, even with fewer adolescents drinking, smoking, or having sex in 2007 than their peers did in 1991, CDC officials said that racial and ethnic trends showed Hispanics were at greater risk than others.

The national data for 2007 was collected from 14,041 students who self-reported their behavior. The students were solely from the black, white, and Hispanic populations, as students from other populations were too few for a representative sample, according to the CDC. In the United States today, among the different minority groups, the Hispanics are the biggest. They are also the ones with the most rapid growth pattern.

The report of the 2007 National Youth Risk Behavioral Survey states that the percentage of black students who engaged in sexual intercourse dropped from 82% in 1991 to 66% in 2007. 28% of black students had sexual intercourse with at least four partners, compared to 43% in 1991.

The number of white students who engaged in sexual intercourse dropped to 44% in 2007 from 50% in 1991. At the same time, the number of white teens engaging in sexual intercourse with at least four partners stood at 12% in 2007, compared to 15% in 1991.

Surprisingly, there was not much of a change in sexual behavior. The numbers for 2007 stood at 52%, a minimal climb-down of 1% from the 53% in 1991. The number of Hispanic students having sexual intercourse with at least four partners was the same for both 1991 and 2007 – 17%.

The trend continues in other areas as well, with Hispanics more prone to suicide attempts and drug abuse – the use of cocaine, heroin or Ecstasy. There were also higher chances of Hispanic students being with someone driving under the influence of alcohol than their white and black counterparts. The possibilities of staying without food for 24 hours or more lose weight was also higher among Hispanics, as was the case with being offered alcohol or drugs in the school premises.

According to Sonia Perez, the Senior Vice President of the National Council of La Raza, a non-profit organization working on Latino issues, one major factor for this disparity was poverty. She said of the Hispanic students, “Living in poor households, having less educated parents and going to overcrowded schools that offer less quality education – it is more likely that they will engage in these kinds of behaviors.”