The state of Florida should reverse course and rejoin a wide-ranging national survey on the behavior risks of young people. Drug use, sexual activity and eating habits among teenagers are just a few choices that can have life-changing impacts — for children, their families and society alike. It doesn’t make sense — and this certainly isn’t the time — for Florida to reinvent the wheel on a barometer that’s worked well for 30 years.
Every other year since 1991, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey has acted as an early-warning system for America’s teenagers. Using questionnaires, the survey monitors behaviors that can lead to death, injury and illness among young people — everything from fighting and bullying and the use of weapons and tobacco to poor dieting and low physical exercise.
The state has conducted the survey in coordination with the CDC, but Florida’s interim education commissioner, Jacob Oliva, announced recently that Florida would run its own survey, collecting most or all of the same information. While Oliva acknowledged that past years’ data, which revealed greater suicide risks among LGBTQ students, and increases in cyber-bullying and vaping habits, had informed programs advocated by Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, he said state officials determined they could get the same material more efficiently and effectively themselves.
