This article was featured on KHN.

A handful of states have quietly pulled out of the country’s largest public effort to track the behavior of high school students as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated America’s youth mental health crisis. .

Colorado, Florida, and Idaho will not participate in the main portion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey of more than 80,000 students. For the past 30 years, state-level surveys conducted anonymously in odd-numbered years have helped uncover mental health stressors and safety risks among high school students.

Each state has its own reasons for opting out, but withdrawal when suicidal thoughts or feelings of hopelessness are mounting has attracted the attention of school psychologists and federal and state health officials.

Questions on state-level surveys, some of which ask about a student’s sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual activity and drug use, clash with laws passed in conservative states. Strong political concerns about teachers and school curricula have led to a reluctance among educators to involve students in what was once considered routine mental and behavioral health assessments, he said. Some experts are worried.

With fewer states participating in state-level CDC surveys, those states will have a harder time tracking conditions and behaviors that indicate poor mental health, such as depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicidal ideation. said the expert.

“With that data, you can say, ‘Do this, do that,’ in a very important way,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health. said. behavior monitoring system. “It is a huge loss for any state to lose the ability to have that data and use that data to understand what is happening to the youth in that state.”

CDC developed the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System in 1990 to track the leading causes of death and injuries among young people. It consists of a nationally representative poll of students in grades 9 through her 12, as well as separate questionnaires at the state and local school district level. Questions focus on behaviors that lead to unintentional injury, violence, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, and physical inactivity.

Colorado, Florida, and Idaho’s decision not to participate in state-level surveys does not affect CDC’s national surveys or the local school district surveys of the states that conduct them.

One of the reasons surveys are powerful tools is the diversity of information they collect, says Norrin Doralard, senior analyst at the Florida Institute for Policy Research, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. . “It will enable the analysis of data by subgroups that include LGBTQ+ youth so that the needs of these students, who are at higher risk of depression, suicide and substance abuse than their peers, are understood and supported by schools and schools.” “We are proud to be a part of the Florida Kids Count, which is part of a national network of non-profit programs focused on children in the United States,” said Dollard, who is also director of the Florida Kids Count.

The CDC is still processing data for 2021 and has not released results due to pandemic-related delays, said agency spokesman Paul Fulton. However, from 2009 he found that trends in a 2019 national survey showed that mental health among young people had deteriorated over the past decade.

“So we started planning,” Ethier said. “When the pandemic hit, I was able to say, ‘Here’s something to watch out for.'”

Angela Mann, president of the Florida Association of School Psychologists, said the pandemic is exacerbating the mental health problems facing young people.

Nearly half of parents responding to a recent KFF/CNN mental health survey said the pandemic had a negative impact on their children’s mental health. Most said they were worried that problems such as self-harm and loneliness caused by the pandemic would affect teenagers.

But the CDC investigation has flaws, some state health officials say they have withdrawn the investigation. For example, not all high schools are included. And some state officials say schools have little actionable data, despite decades of participation, because each state has such a small sample of students.

That was the case for Colorado, which decided not to participate next year, according to Emily Fine, School and Youth Research Manager for the Colorado Department of Health. Instead, the state is improving another study called Healthy Kids Colorado. It includes questions similar to those in the CDC survey and Colorado-specific questions. Aimed at millions of students. That’s almost 100 times the number who participated in her CDC’s state-level survey in 2019.

Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming also have their own youth surveys and have either never participated in or decided to skip the two previous CDC evaluations. At least seven states will not participate in the 2023 state-level survey.

Fine said the state-run option is more profitable because schools receive their own results.

In the Colorado mountain town of Leadville, the Youth Coalition used the results of the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey to conclude that the county has higher than average drug use rates. We also found that Hispanic students, in particular, were apprehensive about sharing serious issues, such as suicidal thoughts, with adults. This suggests that the opportunity to report problems early is lost.

“I feel like most kids are telling the truth in these surveys. I think it’s a reliable source.” Connecting with Youth.

Education officials in Florida and Idaho said they plan to collect more state-specific data using newly created questionnaires. However, neither state plans a new survey, and it’s not clear what questions will be asked or what data will be obtained.

Florida Department of Education spokesperson Cassandra Parellis said in an email that the state intends to form a “workgroup” to design the new system.

Recently, Idaho officials cited CDC survey data when they applied for and received an $11 million grant for a new youth suicide prevention program called the Idaho Lives Project. Data show that the proportion of high school students who seriously consider suicide has increased from 15% in 2011 to 22% in 2019.

“It’s a concern,” said Eric Studebaker, Director of Student Engagement and Safety Coordination for the State Department of Education. Still, the state is concerned about spending class time investigating students and crossing boundaries by asking questions without parental approval.

Whatever the reason, youth mental health advocates call opting out short-sighted and potentially harmful. The pandemic has exacerbated her stress on the mental health of all high school students, especially those who are members of racial or ethnic minority groups and who identify as LGBTQ+.

But since April, at least 12 states have proposed legislation that mirrors Florida’s Parent Rights in Education Act, which bans education about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

The law, which critics have called “don’t say gay,” and the strong political focus it has focused on teachers and school curricula has had a chilling effect on people of all ages, says Florida. said youth advocates like Mann, a school psychologist at ‘ she said.

Since the law was passed, some Florida school administrators have removed “Safe Space” stickers with rainbow flags that indicate they support LGBTQ+ students. Some teachers have resigned in protest of the law, while others have expressed confusion about being allowed to argue in the classroom.

Franci Clepaud-Hobson, a professor of school psychology at the University of Colorado Denver, said opting out of state-level surveys now would be a bad idea because there is data that students need more mental health services. said it could cause harm. National youth risk behavior data for analyzing trends.

“It’s going to be more difficult to really get a handle on what’s going on nationwide,” she said.

KHN Colorado Correspondent Rae Ellen Bichell contributed to this report.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues. KHN is one of the three main operating programs of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), along with policy analysis and polls. KFF is a donated non-profit organization that provides information on health issues to the public.