Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) and California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS) Results

SFUSD data offers a picture of the health and risks of SFUSD students, and underserved populations of the city and county of San Francisco.  While it is a challenge to implement these surveys the time and effort is worth it for the following reasons:

• identify and define health, wellness, educational  programming for students and staff
• assist with grants to provide critical services
• review district-wide disaggregated data to inform programs to address disparities
• implement programs in SFUSD
• used to engage learning and reduce barriers to student social-emotional and physical health. This improves school attendance, increasing ADA funding.

Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS):

The YRBS data is SFUSD’s largest body of trend data of our middle and high school youth, as we have been implementing the survey every other year since 1991. In addition, SFUSD is able to compare our high school YRBS data to all other states in SFUSD that implement the survey. Some additional details about the survey include: 

• Randomly selected students in grades 6-12 in every middle and high school
• Implemented every other year
• Developed by the Division of Adolescent and School Health of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor priority health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading cause of death, disability, and social problems among youth and adults in the United States.
• Developed to:
  • determine the prevalence of health risk behaviors
  • assess whether health risk behaviors increase, decrease or stay the same over time.
• These behaviors include violence and unintentional injuries, tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual behaviors, weight management and dietary behaviors, physical activity
• Reports are created for middle and high school (no school level data)
• Here are slides with the results:
  • MS YRBS - Fall 2022 
  • HS YRBS - Fall 2022

California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS):

Here are some details about the survey:

• CHKS is implemented in grades 6, 7, 9 and 11 in randomly chosen middle and high schools in randomly chosen classrooms
• Implemented every other year online (usually the year we do not implement YRBS)
• WestEd developed the survey under contract with the CA Dept. of Ed. and with support from Duerr Evaluation Resources. Important assistance was provided by an Advisory Committee of researchers, teachers, school prevention and health program practitioners, and public agency representatives. 
• Provides valid indicators of alcohol and drug use, violence and safety, crime, physical activity and mental health.  Violence and safety also includes bullying and bringing weapons to school.
• Reports are by grade level (6, 7,9,11)
• SFUSD did not obtain representative data for 6th grade so we are not sharing that data (active consent was required for 6th grade, which lowers our participation rate)
• Our most recent CHKS report can be found here: CHKS - Fall 2023

Here is a list of various past CHKS and YRBS Reports:

• CHKS and YRBS - SFUSD Reports and Data