Description & Citation--Study No. 3154

• Bibliographic Description
• Scope of Study
• Methodology
• Access and Availability

Bibliographic Description

03154

Health Behavior in School-Aged Children, 1995-1996: [United States]

HBSC, 1995-1996

World Health Organization

United States Department of Health and Human Services. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

World Health Organization

World Health Organization. Health Behavior in School-Aged Children, 1995-1996: [United States]. ICPSR03154-v3. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2008-04-23. doi:10.3886/ICPSR03154.v3

Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) Series

Scope of Study

Since 1982, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe has sponsored a cross-national, school-based study of health-related attitudes and behaviors of young people. These studies, generally known as Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC), are based on nationally independent surveys of school-aged children in as many as 30 participating countries. The HBSC studies were conducted every four years since the 1985-1986 school year. The United States was one of three countries chosen to implement the survey out of cycle. The data available here are the results of the United States study from the 1995-1996 school year. The study results can be used as stand-alone data, or to compare to the other countries involved in the international HBSC. The HBSC study has two main objectives. The first objective is to monitor health-risk behaviors and attitudes in youth over time to provide background and identify targets for health promotion initiatives. The second objective is to provide researchers with relevant information to understand and explain the development of health attitudes and behaviors through early adolescence. The study contains variables dealing with many types of drugs such as tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, inhalants, hallucinogens, and over-the-counter medications. The study also examines a person's health and health behaviors such as eating habits, depression, injuries, anti-social behavior including questions concerning bullying, fighting, using weapons, and how one deals with anger. There are also questions concerning problems with attention span at school and opinions about school itself.

adolescents, alcohol, demographic characteristics, drug use, eating habits, educational environment, family life, health behavior, injuries, mental health, nutrition, risk, schools, school age children, school violence, tobacco

United States

• 1995--1996

• 1995--1996  (school year)

individual

Children in grades 6, 8, and 10 in the United States.

survey data

To protect the anonymity of respondents, all variables that could be used to identify individuals have been collapsed or recoded in the public use files. These modifications should not affect analytic uses of the public use files.

Methodology

This study employed a three-stage cluster design in which the school district was the primary sampling unit (PSU) or first stage (sometimes smaller districts were combined as a single PSU), school was the second stage, and classroom was the third stage. The targeted mean in the age groups were 11.5, 13.5, and 15.5 years. The three selected age groups correspond approximately to grades 6, 8, and 10 in the United States. However, the degree of correspondence varied greatly, depending on the frequency with which students were left back (repeated a grade) and the time of year when the survey was administered.

self-enumerated questionnaires

All archived data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. The archive also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, the archive performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

• Performed consistency checks.
• Created online analysis version with question text.
• Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Access and Availability

Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.

2001-08-14

• 2008-04-23 The principal investigator supplied a new data file that contained the complex sample design variables that were missing from the file previously. A few variable's value labels were updated to match more closely what is shown in the questionnaire. Also data in a few variables were recoded to correct errors. Two new variables, SIBGUARD and RESPADLT, were created to indicate the person(s) responsible for the care of the respondent. Another new variable Q97_COMP was created. It recodes Q97 into a dichotomous Yes/No relationship asking if the respondent had ever used over-the-counter medications.

• 2008-01-29 The data are now provided in additional file formats, including one or more of the following: Stata setup, SAS transport (CPORT), SPSS system, Stata system, SAS supplemental syntax, Stata supplemental syntax files, and tab-delimited ASCII data file.