Health-Risk Behaviors Among Our Nation's Youth: United States, 1992

This report presents national estimates of the prevalence of selected health-risk behaviors among youth ages 12-21 years, by sex, age, Hispanic origin, and race for youth of non-Hispanic origin. Topics include: cigarette and other tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual experience, HIV\AIDS education, runaway and homeless experiences, violence, unintentional injury control, weight control, and participation in physical activities. Data are from the 1992 National Health Interview Survey's Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Data Highlights:

About one-half (49.9 percent) of youth ages 12-21 years had smoked a whole cigarette in their lifetime and another 10.0 percent had taken a few puffs. White youth were more likely to have smoked a whole cigarette (53.8 percent) than black youth (37.9 percent) or Hispanic youth (45.6 percent).

About two-thirds (67.7 percent) of our Nation's youth have had at least one drink of alcohol in their lifetime. Drinking was more prevalent among white adolescents than among black adolescents.

Nearly 8 in 10 (79.1 percent) black teenagers had been sexually active, compared with 58.2 percent of white teenagers and 56.5 percent of Hispanic teenagers. Among sexually active youth, 18.8 percent of white youth had used alcohol or drugs the last time they had sex in contrast with 12.7 percent of black youth.
Females (43.4 percent) were nearly twice as likely as males (24.1 percent) to think they were overweight. Overall, of youth who were trying to lose or keep from gaining weight in the past week, 86.3 percent had exercised and 47.3 percent had dieted.
Overall, 97.8 percent of all teenagers engaged in at least one activity in the past week -- about one-half took part in 5 activities or more. Males were more likely than females to participate in vigorous exercise 3 or more days per week.

This page last reviewed January 11, 2007