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More junior students involved in fights
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Posted on Sep 06 2004
More middle school students got involved in fights last year compared with high school students.
Selected results from the 2003 CNMI Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed that 57.2 percent of 1,543 middle school students have been in a physical fight.
In high school, the number is down to 13.5 percent of 2,177 students.
Meantime, 57 percent of junior school students and 53.8 percent of high school students said in the survey that they “rode with a drinking driver during the past month.”
On alcohol and drug use, 49.4 percent of junior school students drank alcohol and 34.2 percent used marijuana.
In high school, 41.2 percent said they used marijuana; 15.8 percent used marijuana inside the school premises, 38 percent of students were offered, sold or given illegal drugs within school property; and 14 percent consumed alcohol.
Sixty-eight percent of middle school students have smoked cigarettes and 56.6 percent chewed betel nut for the first time before age 11, while in high school, 14.6 percent said they smoked cigarettes and 40 percent of them said they smoked before age 13.
In related information, 13.8 percent of high school students said they were “physically forced to have sexual intercourse against their will and 40.2 percent of them “felt sad or hopeless almost everyday for two weeks or more.”
The survey showed that 7.4 percent of high school actually attempted suicide during the past year. The number is bigger in middle schools with 46.1 percent of them attempting suicide.
The survey data was presented by PSS in last week’s second annual juvenile justice conference on Saipan.
CNMI YRBS is a component of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine leading causes of mortality and morbidity in both young and adult, and to assess how these risks behaviors change over time.
The surveillance system measures behaviors that fall into six categories: Behaviors that result in unintentional injuries and violence, tobacco use, alcohol and drug use, sexual behaviors that result in HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, dietary behavior, and physical activity.
