Thursday, June 1, 2023
6/1/2023
The Utah Department of Health’s (UDOH) Bureau of Health Promotion (BHP) has a rich history of using school-based data for surveillance, evaluation, and assessment of progress towards performance measures in programs addressing Diabetes, Asthma, Cancer control, Heart Disease and Stroke, Physical Activity, Nutrition & Obesity, Tobacco Prevention and Control, and Violence and Injury Prevention. The BHP includes Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) and School Health Profiles (Profiles) data in health program burden reports, fact sheets, grant applications, and educational websites. It is imperative for BHP to have a good understanding of youth risk behaviors and school health policies and practices in order to target and evaluate programmatic efforts, engage stakeholders, perform routine surveillance to identify emerging problems, and apply for funding. BHP plans to administer YRBS and Profiles, including stateadded questions, throughout the grant period to continue these efforts. YRBS and Profiles data inform stakeholders, including health professionals, policy makers, schools, and other partners, about current health-related policies and environments in Utah’s schools. The BHP also uses data to raise awareness of adolescent risk behaviors and to drive changes in school health policies and programs. Reports, fact sheets, and other documents containing school survey data are shared with health and social services professionals and agencies; the state legislature; the media; national, state, and local libraries; state universities; and the general public. Individual custom queries can be performed on the Utah YRBS database (http://ibis.health.utah.gov), including the option to combine data from different years in order to increase precision for less common risk behaviors/conditions like drug use and asthma. Utah has conducted both the YRBS and Profiles since the surveys’ respective inceptions. The Utah State Board of Education (USBE) supports the surveys by providing letters of support, class lists, and contact information for school administrators. The administration of both surveys is overseen by the coordinator, housed in BHP. Bach-Harrison, LLC, a local survey company works with the schools to administer YRBS survey completion. In spite of state legislation requiring active consent, the UDOH has diligently obtained weighted data from every administration of YRBS other than 2015. Subsequently, Bach Harrison, LLC’s work during the 2017 YRBS administration included marketing the survey project to the selected schools (administrators, teachers, and parents) to increase participation rates, collecting active parental consent forms, training local survey administrators and teachers to administer the surveys in the classroom, biweekly submission of the YRBS tracking form, and submitting surveys in accordance with CDC standards. In 2017, the combined response rate was 66% and Utah received weighted data. The UDOH is seeking continuing CDC support in order to sustain the invaluable surveillance and program evaluation activities made possible by both YRBS and Profiles data. Funding will be used to improve the quality of the administration of the surveys and increase dissemination and use of the results.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
