Safe and Drug Free Schools
This report represents the merging of the survey results from
fourteen Macomb County School Districts whose eighth, tenth and twelfth grade
students participated in the Michigan Alcohol and Other Drugs School
Survey (MAODSS) during the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 school years. These
fourteen districts are spread geographically throughout Macomb County and
provide a solid cross-representation of the county’s youth.
The Macomb Intermediate School District in cooperation with the
Macomb County Office of Substance Abuse prepares this aggregate
summary report to assist the community in reaching a better
understanding of the ATOD abuse problem and to support school and
community-based solutions that work to ensure a safe and drug-free
environment for our youth.
While the 1999 Michigan
findings for the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) show positive trends
on all significant changes since 1997, they also reveal that relatively
large percentages of the state's high school students continue to engage
in risk behaviors. Overall, the practices of risk behaviors among
Michigan students mirror those of their national counterparts. The
analysis of trends and patterns in these behaviors among the state's
youth can guide the use of limited resources for prevention and
intervention programs. School- and community-based programs have a
critical role to play in the promotion of health behaviors and
alternatives for youth. The YRBS findings and the larger body of
research regarding effective programming point to the following
recommendations.
-
Michigan should continue and expand
age-appropriate and research-based prevention, including health
education. The state trends are moving in the right
direction; this overall finding suggest that current initiatives
should be reinforced and expanded. Previous studies indicate
that students need not only information but the necessary skills to
make healthy choices. Risk behaviors compromise students'
health and their capacity to be successful learners.
-
Health education and prevention programs need to
start early. Large numbers of Michigan high school students
initiate risky behaviors early. Before age 13, one third
of students reported having had their first full drink of alcohol;
one quarter, their first cigarette; and 12 percent, marijuana.
Early prevention and health education programs - during the
elementary and middle school years - may help prevent such early
experimentation. Once begun, such practices can be difficult
to change.
-
Prevention and health education programs should
continue throughout the high school years. Programs often
stop at ninth or tenth grade, just when many behaviors begin to
escalate. Such behaviors as smoking, binge drinking, multiple
sexual partners, and physical inactivity are more prevalent among
twelfth graders than ninth graders. The data also show
critical interventions are needed for ninth graders who are more
likely to be involved in fighting, experiencing depression, and
seriously planning as well as attempting suicide.
-
Parents and communities have critical roles in
promoting healthy behaviors among children and youth.
Parents and other significant adults serve as role models and can
encourage children and adolescents to practice healthy
behaviors. Relatively large numbers of students are not
participating in sports or other physical activities, and too many
are spending their leisure time watching television. Access to
supervised activities and caring adults in non-school hours provides
healthy alternatives for young people and opportunities to enhance
their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
-
Prevention efforts can focus on the specific
needs of student by grade, gender and race to achieve maximum
impact. While it is necessary to address a broad array of
health-related issues, research has demonstrated that programs
geared to the specific needs of participants are often most
effective. Almost all the measures on the YRBS show
significant differences in behavior by gender, grade and
race/ethnicity.
-
Schools should continue to implement programs and
enforce policies to eliminate violent behavior and the use of
tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs on school property.
Current state and local policies address some of these issues, but
strategies should also focus on offering in-school prevention and
intervention programs that help reduce these behaviors.
-
State and local health and education agencies
need to use available to take action. Whenever possible,
communities should use existing data and direct scarce resources
into programming. Schools and communities do not always need
to conduct additional surveys in order to develop an implement
action plans to improve the health and well-being of youth.
Return
to top of page
|
