Virginia Youth Survey
Middle School
Through a five-year grant provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Virginia Department of Health in collaboration with the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, with support from the Virginia Department of Education, will be gathering information about the health risk behaviors of youth. The Virginia Youth Survey (VYS) has been developed to monitor priority health risk behaviors that contribute markedly to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems among youth and adults within the Commonwealth of Virginia.
These behaviors, often established during childhood and early adolescence, include:
• Tobacco use
• Unhealthy dietary behaviors
• Inadequate physical activity
• Alcohol and other drug use
• Behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence
The survey is administered every odd year in randomly selected Virginia public schools. For more information, please visit: https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/virginia-youth-survey/.
Filtering Data
Hovering over a locality, CSB, or region on the map, or over a data point on a graph will highlight exact data values. Select a locality, CSB, or region using the dropdown menu to filter the data to that location. Don't want to see everything? Use filters to select data from certain years and demographic subgroups.
Downloading Data
The download button at the bottom right of each dashboard allows you to download a PDF or image of the current dashboard view. At the top of each tab, you will also see an information icon. Hover over the icon to read more about the data sources and links to access the raw data, if available.
Data Considerations
Data suppression criteria follows the criteria provided by the data source. Suppression criteria may vary across data sources and is used to maintain confidentiality.
Many data tabs include the option to view data as a count and as a rate. Count data is useful in looking at the total quantity of an event but may be influenced by the size of the underlying population. A rate means that the data was standardized to a common denominator and can be compared across geographic or demographic groups.