Important Stats and Facts
Tobacco, Drug and Alcohol Abuse
- Every day, about 4,000 American youth ages 12 - 17 try their first cigarette. In Massachusetts in 2007, 46% of high school students and 23% of 8th graders reported using cigarettes at some point in their lives.1
- In 2007, 41% of Massachusetts high school students reported having tried smoking marijuana. 27% reported having been offered, sold, or given illegal drugs at school. 2
- 9% of Massachusetts high school students reported using marijuana before the age of 13, and 20% reported using alcohol before age 13.3
- 1 in 5 teens reported abusing a prescription pain medication. 4
- Almost 90% of teens who do drugs also engage in other risky behaviors like fighting, carrying weapons and having unsafe sex.5
Drinking and Driving
- In 2003, 21% of children under 15 years old who were killed in motor vehicle crashes were killed in alcohol-related crashes. Of these children, 47% were passengers in vehicles where the driver had been drinking.6
- In 2007, 26% of Massachusetts high school students recently rode with a driver who had been drinking. 7
Violence
- In 2007, 22% of Massachusetts high school students were bullied. 8
- Teenagers are twice as likely as adults to be victims of violent crime. 9
- 22% of urban 11- and 12-year-olds know at least one person their age in a gang. 10
- Middle school students are twice as likely as high school students to be affected by school violence.11
- More than 70% of U.S. schools felt that aggressive behavior in elementary school children had increased in their districts in the previous five years.12
Relationship Violence
- In 2005, 10% of Massachusetts high school students have already experienced sexual assault. 13
- Up to 80% of teens know someone in a violent relationship.14
- In 2007, 11% of Massachusetts high school students had experienced violence in a dating relationship.15
Sexuality
- 64% of Massachusetts high school seniors (45% of all high school students) have had sexual intercourse.16
- 6% of Massachusetts high school students had sexual intercourse before the age of 13.17
- 87% of teens and 91% of adults think it would be easier for teens to delay sexual activity and prevent teen pregnancy if teens were able to have more open, honest conversations with their parents. However, nearly 4 in 10 teens report that they have not had such a conversation with their parents.18
- Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth are four times more likely to have attempted suicide in the past year, four times more likely to have missed school in the past month because of feeling unsafe and four times more likely to have been injured or threatened with a weapon at school.19
Teen Pregnancy and STDs
- Nationally, 31% of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20 - about 750,000 pregnancies a year.20
- A sexually active teen who does not use contraception has a 90% chance of becoming pregnant within a year.21
- Every year, one-half of all new HIV infections in the nation occur in people under the age of 25, and one-quarter of these new infections occur in people under the age of 21.22
- 3% Massachusetts high school students report having been diagnosed with an STD.23
Obesity
- 1 in 5 children in the U.S. are overweight.24
- Children who are obese between the ages of 10 and 13 are reported to have a 70% likelihood of obesity persisting into adult years.25
- 30% of children eat fast food on any given day.26
- Overweight teens consume an average of 700 to 1,000 more calories than necessary, gaining an average of 58 pounds over a 10-year period.27
- In 2007, 28% of Massachusetts high school students watch 3 or more hours of TV on an average school day. Only 41% engage in moderate physical activity 5 days a week.28
Mental Health
- 42% of first- to third-grade girls want to be thinner.29
- More than one-half of teenage girls and one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight- control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting and taking laxatives.30
- Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people 15-24 years of age.31
- In 2005, 24% of Massachusetts high school students (31% of girls versus 17% of boys) reported feeling sad or hopeless for two weeks or more, and 22% of girls (12% of boys) had cut, burned or tried to hurt themselves on purpose.32
Safety
- 40% of all teen deaths are a result of motor vehicle accidents.33
- Helmets can reduce the risk of head a injury by 85% and the risk of brain injury by 88%, but only 41% of children wear helmets when riding a bike or scooter, in-line skating or skateboarding.34
- In homes where parents own a gun, between 75% and 80% of first-and second-graders know where it is kept.35
- Children who wear seatbelts reduce their risk of fatal injury by 50%. Yet in 2004, only 73% of children ages 4 to 7 wore seat belts and 81% of children ages 8 to 15 wore seat belts.36
