Corvallis School district 509J

Health & Wellness

Oregon Healthy Teens Survey Fact Sheet

Oregon Department of Human Services, Health Services & Oregon Department of Education

Index:


What is Oregon Healthy Teens (OHT)?
A comprehensive, school-based, anonymous, and voluntary survey, OHT monitors risk behaviors and other factors that influence the health and well being of Oregon’s children and adolescents. State and local agencies depend on OHT to assess youth needs, develop comprehensive plans and prevention programs, solicit funding, and measure outcomes.

How is the OHT survey developed?
The Oregon Healthy Teens Survey was designed and is conducted as a collaborative effort by the Oregon Department of Education and Oregon Department of Human Services programs, with additional support from the Oregon Commission on Children and Families, the Governor’s Commission on Juvenile Justice, the Oregon Progress Board, and the Oregon Research Institute. Creating a single statewide system for getting a scientifically accurate picture of youth development helps reduce costs and redundancies sometimes associated with the multiple school assessments conducted in the past, and provides schools and their communities with a better opportunity to use the information for longer-term planning and evaluation of their efforts to improve youth outcomes.

Who participates in OHT?
Surveys are administered annually to approximately one-third of Oregon’s 8th and 11th graders (plus a smaller state-wide representative sample covering 9th-12th grade at least every other year). The OHT collected information from about 20,000 Oregon adolescents in 2004. Participating students came from 99 high schools and 119 associated middle schools in 31 counties. Each year a random selection picks districts within counties and schools within districts.

What if school districts, schools, or students do not choose to participate?
Participation in the OHT is voluntary. However, to develop accurate state and county estimates of priority health-risk behaviors among adolescents, participation rates must be high. A few non-participating districts have implemented another valid and reliable method of data collection to obtain the required information to apply for NCLB—Title IVA—Safe and Drug Free Schools funds.

What does OHT Measure?
OHT focus areas include:

  1. Tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use and access to substances;
  2. Protective factors and assets such as parental supervision and neighborhood characteristics;
  3. Physical exercise, nutrition, and body weight;
  4. Sexual risk behaviors;
  5. Mental health concerns such as suicidal ideation, depression, harassment, and body image;
  6. Intentional and unintentional injury including violence and vehicle safety;
  7. Health care access, use of school-based health centers, and screening for conditions such as asthma;
  8. Basic demographics.


How is OHT Data Used?
Data is used to help evaluate the effectiveness of a variety of projects and programs that promote healthy adolescence in Oregon. OHT data is a key source of state and national leading health indicators and outcome measures, such as those included in the Oregon Legislative Benchmarks and Healthy People 2010. Many Oregon counties and local communities use OHT survey information in community health assessments. Agencies, non-profit organizations, and community groups use the data to provide baseline and evaluation information required for grants and other funding sources, and for planning and evaluating activities and programs that promote health and ability to learn, prevent injury, and reduce high risk behaviors among youth.

Specifically, local, state, and national groups have used the data in the development and monitoring of state plans such as the Youth Suicide Prevention Plan, the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Plan, and plans related to SB555, as well as to obtain funding and other grants to enhance local prevention resources. Oregon school districts use the data from OHT to provide information on student behavior changes as required by the Title IVA, Safe and Drug Free Schools grant. Obtaining such funding relies on the proven strategy of being able to demonstrate need and provide accountability by measuring outcomes.

Are sensitive questions asked?
Some questions may be considered sensitive by some schools or school districts. AIDS, HIV infection, and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are major health problems. Sexual intercourse and intravenous drug use are among the behaviors known to increase the risk of HIV or other STD. The only way to determine if adolescents are at risk of becoming infected with HIV or other STDs is to ask questions about these behaviors. Attempted suicide, tobacco use, alcohol and drug use, and weapon carrying also may be considered sensitive topics. Questions are presented in a sensitive and straight-forward manner in recognition of these topics.

Is student participation anonymous? How is student privacy protected?
Survey administration procedures are designed to protect student privacy and allow for anonymous participation. The survey is proctored by classroom teachers, who are given short training sessions on the survey protocol. Students submit a completed optically scannable questionnaire booklet, containing no personal identifiers, which is then placed in an envelope. We ask that the last student to complete the survey within a classroom close and seal the envelope and write their name across the seal. Students not participating in the survey are provided with an alternative activity by their school outside of the classroom. The state publishes reports at the state and county level. Aggregated reports sent to schools are based on the numbers of students participating so anonymity of students is preserved. Some rural counties have coordinated so that small schools receive only combined reports across a number of counties.

Are students tracked over time to see how their behavior changes?
No. Each year a new sample of schools and students is drawn. Students who participated cannot be tracked because no identifying information is collected.

Are there fees that schools must pay to participate in Oregon Healthy Teens?
At this point the combination of grants from various state agencies has covered the costs of survey administration and report preparation so that schools in the random sample can participate. The costs for individual schools are the expenses of doing a direct mailing to the parents of students in the randomly chosen classrooms. Parents are notified about the survey by direct mail to homes. Indirect costs are associated with the staff time of each individual school specific coordinator, teacher training time, and each teacher’s time that proctor the survey within the classroom.

Schools participating in the OHT following the protocol of passive permission or consent cannot use U.S. Department of Education funding for mailings, as OHT does not use the “active consent” protocol required by NCLB. The OHT coalition believes their method provides a more reliable unbiased and representative sample of students within a school.

How long does it take to fill out the questionnaire? Is there some sort of physical test?
One class period is needed for administration of the questionnaire. It takes approximately 10 minutes for the survey administrator to distribute survey materials and read directions to the students. It then takes approximately 30 minutes for students to record their responses. The questionnaire contains 104 multiple choice questions. No physical test or exam is involved. Schools may add some additional questions to the survey by coordinating with the Department of Human Services for the scanning and report preparation.

Are the questionnaire and consent letter provided in other languages?
OHT is unfortunately not able to offer a non-English version of the survey at this time. In addition, OHT does not have much capacity to make accommodations for students with special needs. This is primarily due to time constrains and budgets. DHS is preparing a sample notification of parents in Spanish for use by the schools.

Is OHT related to the “No Child Left Behind” mandates?
The focus of No Child Left Behind is on the improvement of students in academic areas. The NCLB section, Title IV-A, Safe and Drug Free Schools, requires school districts to collect data around student alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use as well as issues around violence. If funds from the U.S. Department of Education (including NCLB) are used for surveys, it requires active parental permission, which is not the approach used by the Oregon Healthy Teens Survey.

Program planning and support for increasing the health and well-being of students helps those students to be ready and able to learn once they are in the classroom. Schools are generally interested in having a healthy student body that is able to focus on their education when they are in the classroom setting.

How do parents find out about the OHT?
Oregon uses an “active notification” with a “passive permission/passive consent” model for parents. OHT requires that participating schools actively notify the parents of randomly selected students. It is suggested that a letter be sent to the home of each student to inform the parents or guardians of the upcoming survey and give parents a chance to find out more about the survey. The state coalition for OHT suggests that each school make a physical copy of the survey available in either the main office or the counseling office, where parents could visit and view the survey. Parents may also view the survey on the DHS website at: http://www.healthoregon.org/chs/yrbsdata.cfm

If the school does not hear from a parent, the survey protocol assumes permission is given by the parent for their student to take the survey. If a parent does NOT wish their child to participate in the survey, they are asked to call the school or teacher to opt their student out of the survey. Schools are asked to have an alternate site for those students to be placed while their classmates take the survey. Parents may also tell their child not to take the survey. Students may also opt out of the survey on their own even if the parent had not explicitly asked them not to participate. The survey is voluntary. The bottom of each page in the survey from also states that the survey is voluntary.

Do students answer questions truthfully?
Research indicates data of this nature may be gathered as reliably form adolescents as from adults. Internal reliability checks help identify the small percentage of students who falsify their answers. To obtain truthful answers, students must perceive the survey as important and know procedures have been developed to protect their privacy and allow for anonymous participation.

Approximately two percent of surveys were eliminated due to combinations of “dubious” answers. Another one percent was eliminated because the student did not fill out the grade or gender information.

Where are the results available?
Results for schools are available through the school district’s instructional services department. Publication of state and county level data is available on the DHS website at: http://www.healthoregon.org/chs/yrbsdata.cfm

 

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