The overall news is mostly good in a new survey of nearly 30,000 B.C. youth.
For instance, three quarters of kids aged 12 to 18 have never tried even a puff of a cigarette, an improvement from the 66 per cent who reported they had not tried smoking in 2003 when the McCreary Centre Society conducted the same Adolescent Health Survey.
“With all the negative stereotyping we see and hear about young people in our province, it is encouraging to note that smoking, alcohol use and marijuana use have all declined since the last survey in 2003,” said Annie Smith, executive director of the society, after the report was released Tuesday.
“There are promising and positive trends in areas like smoking and alcohol,” she said, referring to the fact that 29 per cent of 13-year olds said they have drank alcohol, down from 34 per cent five years earlier and 58 per cent of 15-year olds said they had drank, down from 65 per cent in 2003.
“Clearly, we have to use the public messages or interventions that are working and apply them to other areas,” she added.
The survey indicates that most (nearly half) of youth try marijuana in the 13 and 14-year old ages but the overall number of youth who have tried marijuana shrank from 37 per cent in 2003 to 30 per cent in 2008.
For the survey, public school students answered 147 questions last spring and it reveals that the majority (84 per cent) believe they are in good physical or emotional health.
But results are a mixed bag and some are sure to give parents of teenagers fits.
For example, while use of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamines declined, the number of students who said they had ever used other drugs, like prescription pills (15 per cent) and hallucinogens (nine per cent), increased slightly.
And in some areas, parents may be complicit in the negative behaviours. For instance, although there was an increase in the rate of students who always wore a seatbelt when riding in a vehicle (66 per cent compared to 54 per cent five years earlier) that still means that over a third do not always wear a seatbelt.
And 76 per cent of students don’t always wear a helmet while cycling. While 24 per cent of cyclists do always wear a helmet, that is still a decrease from the 30 per cent who said they did in 1998, soon after mandatory helmet laws came into effect.
Seatbelt use starts out high at age 12 but drops from ages 14 to 16 before it rises again at ages 17 and 18.
One of the more curious aspects of the survey was that less than one per cent of youth said they were mostly gay or lesbian while four per cent said they weren’t yet sure about their sexual orientation. It’s an interesting result because in the sexual behaviour category, eight per cent of males and 10 per cent of females reported having had intercourse with a same-sex partner.
Still in the sex category, just over a quarter of all students said they have had oral sex. At age 12, the rate is three per cent and by age 18, it rises to 52 per cent.
Pregnancy rates remained stable compared to five years earlier with less than two per cent reporting they got pregnant or were involved in getting someone pregnant.
Although B.C. reportedly has the highest child poverty rate in Canada, 89 per cent of students said they never go to bed hungry and 90 per cent said they have their own bedroom while 99 per cent have a computer in their residence. For the purposes of the survey, poverty indicators are: going to bed hungry, sharing a bedroom, not owning a computer and not having a family holiday in the past year.
While the percentage of students who said they had been sexually abused stayed the same as 2003 - 13 per cent for females and three per cent for males, Smith said the increase in the rate of youth who experienced physical abuse (to 17 per cent from 15 per cent five years earlier) is troubling.
Asked if it is possible the rate increased because of growing awareness and willingness to disclose abuse, she said it is possibility. “On the other hand, in some school districts, parents were required to sign consent forms for students to participate in the survey,” she said, referring to the fact that even though the surveys are anonymous, children might not be so forthcoming if they know their parents have consented to their participation.
The Adolescent Health Survey is the largest of its kind in Canada. It is the fourth time it has been conducted; previous years were 1992, 1998 and 2003. The McCreary Centre Society is a not for profit organization committed to research and education intended to improve youth health.
Funding for the survey was provided by provincial government sources. Public health nurses administered the 45-minute survey during school time in 1,760 classrooms at schools which chose to cooperate.
Other survey findings included:
-Only 25 per cent of males and 11 per cent of females exercise daily. Ten per cent of girls and seven per cent of boys get no exercise at all.
-The percentage of youth who seriously considered suicide was 12 per cent. The percentage who actually attempted it was five per cent. Twenty per cent of girls and 10 per cent of boys say they have deliberately self harmed themselves.
- Fifty-four per cent of youth report they are of European heritage, down from 61 per cent five years earlier. Vancouver Coastal Health region had the most students who said they were born outside of Canada
- 33 per cent. In the same region, the same rate spoke a language other than English at home most of the time.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Few...181/story.html 
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