The Lodi School District Board of Education received a presentation at their Jan. 9 meeting showing unique results from the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
The results, coming to the board following a December release, were presented by members of the Lodi Community Action Team, with Coalition Chair Steven Ricks, Project Director Paula Enger, and Project Coordinator Bryan Bilse.
“The data this time is very odd,” Ricks explained, pointing out that the survey, conducted nationally by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was collected in early October 2021. At that time students were attending school in person, but had just returned amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was a period in which indoor masking was still being enforced, along with social distancing.
The timing was also different, according to Ricks, with the survey taken in the fall as opposed to every other spring, since its inception in 2005.
Before getting into the numbers, Ricks pointed out that over the years LCAT members have avoided focusing on individual data points, looking more at multi-year trends. One reason for this is that the Lodi School District is small enough that specific ups and downs could be attributed to unique cases of identifiable individuals.
When asked if they had drank alcohol in the past 30 days, about one-third of high schoolers responded yes, with 12% in 9th grade and 43% in 12th grade. Among middle schoolers, the rate was 11%.
Over time, a demographic shift has appeared in responses, Ricks explained: “You start to see a trend here that we’ve seen over the last several years. The female numbers are higher than the male numbers. It kind of did a flip about six years ago.”
Over the past three surveys, in 2017, 2019, and 2021, the number of students reporting that they had ever used a vaping device went up and down from 17.3% to 38%, then down to 16%.
“I think there was something going on here with the fact that with social distancing, being in smaller groups, and not being with peer groups, may have affected the numbers,” said Ricks.
Mental health in a crisis
The strongest trends appeared when the questions turned toward the area of mental health.
The number of high schoolers reporting significant problems with anxiety in the prior 12 months jumped from 46% to 49% between 2019 and 2021. However, when broken down by sex, there was a stark difference, with female students reporting anxiety issues going up from 60% to 68%, while male students went down from 33% to 30%. In the middle school, the rate has stayed relatively steady at around 48%.
“This has followed the trend of the last several surveys where anxiety has continued to creep up,” said Ricks, “but is it not as significant as we thought it would be as a jump, based on all the anecdotal evidence that we had.”
Those reporting that they had seriously considered suicide has been up and down among middle schoolers, from 12% in 2017, to 26% in 2019, and down to 16% in 2021. High schoolers have been steadily trending upwards, from 11% to 16%, and in the last survey 18%.
The survey asked students about depression separately, describing it as a period of prolonged sadness in the past 12 months in which the individual was {span id=”docs-internal-guid-03630164-7fff-165b-39f4-b245551943ab”}{span}“so sad or hopeless almost everyday for two weeks or more in a row they they stopped doing usual activities.”{/span}{/span}
{span}{span}In that case, students in both schools have been trending upwards, with middle schoolers reporting periods of depression at 21% in 2017, 25% in 2019, and 27% in 2021. High school students responded similarly at 17%, 25%, and 31%.{/span}{/span}
“The world was a messed up place then,” said Ricks, “and I think we, as adults, had times when we were depressed, and it’s not shocking to us that the kids would be that way too.”
High-risk communities
When looking at the more detailed survey results beyond what was presented to the board, Ricks explained that minority students appeared to be having more trouble, including non-white students and those who identified as part of the LGBTQ community.
That aspect of the results, Ricks told the board, was “not shocking” and reflected high responses around the country. Especially given the oddity of the most recent results, Ricks said that he was looking forward to what would be coming from surveys given this spring.
“The depression numbers are really, quite disturbing, I think,” said Ricks. “And it is something that we are really starting to dig into, to see if that was a moment in time and if those numbers continue. Seeing those numbers in the spring is going to be huge.”
Bilse told the board that LCAT has projects in the works including focus group sessions, in part responding to survey results.
“We want to talk to groups of high school kids about these numbers and kind of pick their brains a little bit,” said Bilse, “and that way we can better understand it and hopefully implement some changes.”
Additionally, Bilse said that partnerships are in the works with Reach Out Lodi, as well as with the Lodi High School to provide mental health first aid training to community members and school staff.
Following their presentation to the school board, LCAT will be sharing their analysis of survey results to other community groups including the Lodi Common Council.
