Health risk behaviors among adolescents who do and do not attend school--United States, 1992

Abstract

High proportions of U.S. high school students engage in behaviors that place them at increased risk for the leading causes of death and morbidity (e.g., motor-vehicle crashes and other unintentional injuries, homicide, suicide, heart disease, and cancer), unintended pregnancy, and infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted diseases. Because efforts to measure health-risk behaviors among adolescents throughout the United States have not included those who do not attend school, the prevalences of those behaviors are probably underestimated for the total adolescent population. To characterize more accurately the prevalence of selected health-risk behaviors among adolescents aged 12-19 years who do and do not attend school, CDC analyzed self-reported national data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), conducted as part of the 1992 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). This report summarizes the results of the analysis.