By Liberty Belote, UP Program Associate As the days get longer and warmer, we’re all feeling that spring energy! It’s the perfect time to reflect,
our 2025 impact update is here!
Did you know that 95% of invited high schools in Vermont administer the Youth Risk Behavior Survey?
And Vermont has one of the highest participation rates. Yet, there is room for improvement.
UP for Learning and the Vermont Department of Health have created youth and adult-specific videos, posters, and social media posts to explain why the YRBS is important. Scroll to the bottom of the page to access these materials.
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is a behavioral health survey developed and maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disease, injury and social problems among youth.
The YRBS is administered in middle and high schools across the U.S. every two years. Since 1993, the Vermont Department of Health and Agency of Education have sponsored the YRBS in Vermont.
Educational leaders, public health professionals, policymakers, and youth all use the YRBS to better understand their schools and communities and design targeted actions to address areas of need.
The YRBS is next being administered in Vermont schools in early 2025.
Question: What percent of VT high school students do you think have tried vaping?
Answer: 32%
…Did you guess higher? Many people do. We bring our own lived experiences and other biases to our perceptions of youth behavior. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) helps educational leaders, public health professionals, policymakers, and youth see challenges more clearly and target action to help address them as they currently exist.
In the 2023-2024 school year, 42 school-based teams of youth and adults used YRBS data to create change in their communities through UP for Learning’s Getting to ‘Y’ program.
"I feel like we have a lot of reign here and we’re very empowered...and I think that’s super important. That’s why we keep on coming back to the YRBS and GTY, because we feel like we’re making a difference.”
Did you know that 95% of invited high schools in Vermont administer the Youth Risk Behavior Survey?
And yet, just 66% of those students complete the survey.
Even if your school is already administering the survey, you can help!
How to help:
By Liberty Belote, UP Program Associate As the days get longer and warmer, we’re all feeling that spring energy! It’s the perfect time to reflect,
The 2023 YRBS report shows health and behavior trends among middle and high school students in Vermont.
Read UP Youth Intern Hanae Debo’s article in the Thetford Academy News about their Getting to Y Data Analysis Retreat.
Getting to Y replication in New Hampshire By Liz Brochu, CADY – NH GTY Coordinator: Being present at the Getting to ‘Y’ NH Kickoff Conference
Getting to Y Replication in New Hampshire By Mavis Downey, Thetford Academy Class of 2026 On January 23rd, I was driving down to Concord, New
This downloadable, customizable poster allows you to share the date of your upcoming YRBS
At UP for Learning, we believe we all must play our part in uprooting and rebuilding the systems behind inequities.
For our part, we commit to continuing our work to become an inclusive, anti-racist organization and community. We commit to continuing to listen, change and grow.
Creative material developed by UP for Learning is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non-Commercial 4.0 International License.
We strive to make our website accessible to all audiences, including those with disabilities.
For more information: [email protected]
