YRBSS: High School Youth Health Risk Behaviors 1991-2017

The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) monitors six categories of priority health behaviors among high school students from 1991 to 2017. It tracks behaviors related to unintentional injuries, violence, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, sexual health, diet, and physical inactivity, plus obesity and asthma prevalence. Data includes prevalence estimates, confidence intervals, and demographic stratifications like sex, race, and grade.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in substance use prevalence over time using YEAR, Topic, and Data_Value_Type.
• Comparing health risk behaviors across demographic groups using Sex, Race, and Grade columns.
• Mapping regional variations in youth behaviors using GeoLocation (state) and LocationDesc.
• Assessing statistical reliability of prevalence estimates using Sample_Size and High/Low_Confidence_Limit columns.
• Investigating specific risk questions and subtopics using Greater_Risk_Question, Lesser_Risk_Question, and SubTopicID.

Strengths

• Covers a 27-year time range (1991-2017), enabling longitudinal trend analysis.
• Includes statistical annotations like sample sizes and confidence limits for data quality assessment.
• Provides detailed demographic stratifications (Sex, Race, Grade) for subgroup analysis.

Limitations

• Metadata conflicts: one source lists 'other-license-specified' while others list license as unknown.
• Key metadata like exact row count, file size, and definitive author are missing from all sources.
• Data is not current, with the last update reflecting metadata maintenance in 2026 but content ending in 2017.

Provenance

Source

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), via data.cdc.gov.

Collection Method

National school-based survey, the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS).

Time Range

1991-2017

Freshness

2026-03-16 14:34:51 (metadata update on Socrata); data content covers 1991-2017.

Geography

United States, with state-level location identifiers (LocationAbbr, GeoLocation).