YRBSS Data & Documentation
Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data are available in two file formats: Access® and ASCII. The Access and ASCII data can be downloaded and used as is. Additionally, SAS® and SPSS® programs are provided to convert the ASCII data into SAS® and SPSS® datasets for use in those packages. Note: YRBS documentation files on this page are within the following file size ranges: pdfs: 45K-1M; dat files: 3M-5M; sas programs: 2K-15K; sps programs: 2K-25K; zip files: 2M-6M.
National data files are downloadable from this page. To request state, district, territory, or tribal government data files not available on our website, please use the YRBSS Data Request Form.
Learn more about Data Availability and Requesting YRBSS Data Files.
ASCII
Programs
SAS Format Program (sas)sas icon
SAS Input Program (sas)sas icon
SPSS Syntax (sps)stats icon
Documentation
2019
Data
National (To save the ASCII data file: right click the link and select “Save target as”)
Documentation
2017
Data
National (To save the ASCII data file: right click the link and select “Save target as”)
Documentation
2015
Data
National (To save the ASCII data file: right click the link and select “Save target as”)
Documentation
2013
Data
National (To save the ASCII data file: right click the link and select “Save target as”)
Documentation
2011
Data
National (To save the ASCII data file: right click the link and select “Save target as”)
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2009
Data
National (To save the ASCII data file: right click the link and select “Save target as”)
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2007
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2005
Data
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2003
Data
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2001
Data
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1999
Data
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1997
Data
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1995
Data
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1993
Data
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1991
Data
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Alternative High School (1998)
Data
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National College YRBS (1995)
Data
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SAS Format Programsas icon
SAS Input Programsas icon
SPSS Syntaxstats icon
Access Filezip icon
Documentation
- Save the ASCII data file to a folder on your computer.
- Specify column locations for each variable as needed by the software you are using.
Note: SAS and SPSS programs need to be used to convert ASCII into SAS and SPSS datasets. How to use the ASCII data varies from one software package to another. Column positions for each variable usually have to be specified. Column positions for each variable can be found in the documentation for each year’s data. Consult your software documentation for more information.
- Save the Access file to a folder on your computer.
- Uncompress the Access file.
Note: The file is stored in compressed form to improve download time; it will need to be uncompressed before it can be used. See File Formats Help for more information on uncompressing the file.
- Save the SAS Format Program, SAS Input Program, and the ASCII data files to a folder on your computer.
- Open the SAS Format Program in SAS and edit it according to the instructions included in the comments in the program.
- Run the program. This will create a permanent format library in the folder specified in the SAS program.
- Open the SAS Input Program in SAS and edit it according to the instructions included in the comments in the program.
- Run the program. This will read the ASCII data file and convert it into a permanent SAS dataset for the particular year in the folder specified in the SAS program.
Note: Each year of YRBSS data should go in its own folder because each year has its own format library. Format libraries are not comparable across years. See SAS Format Library for more information.
The SAS format library contains the formats used to make SAS output more readable. Formats are linked to the data so that results are displayed as words ("Male" or "Female", for instance) instead of numbers (1 or 2). The SAS YRBS data file is designed to use its companion format library.
The following example SAS program shows how to use the format library. It assumes that both the data file and the format library are in “c:data”. Note that the program contains two libname statements. The first libname statement indicates where the data file is located; the second libname statement indicates where the format library is located.
libname mydata 'c:data'; /* tells SAS where the data are */
libname library 'c:data'; /* tells SAS where the formats are */
proc freq data=mydata.yrbs2005;
tables q2;
run;
Using the format library is recommended but technically is optional. If you do not want to use the format library, include the following statement at the start of your SAS program:
options nofmterr; /* tells SAS to not look for formats */
Please note that each year of YRBS data has its own format library. Format libraries are not the same across years of data.
For further information on using format libraries, please consult your SAS documentation.
- Save the SPSS syntax file and the ASCII data files to a folder on your computer.
- Open the SPSS syntax file in SPSS and edit it according to the instructions included in the comments in the file.
- Run the syntax file. This will read the ASCII data file and convert it into a permanent SPSS data file that includes labels and formats.
- Software for Analysis of YRBS Data pdf icon[PDF - 578 KB]A review of software packages suitable for analyzing YRBS data and guidance on how to use them.
- Combining YRBS Data Across Years and Sites pdf icon[PDF - 291 KB]Guidance and best practices for combining data from multiple Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBSS).
- Conducting Trend Analyses of YRBS Data pdf icon[PDF - 345 KB]Guidance and methods for conducting trend analyses of Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data.
- Interpretation of YRBS Trend Data pdf icon[PDF - 214 KB]Guidance on interpreting YRBS trend data analyses.
- How to Analyze YRBS Sexual Minority Data pdf icon[PDF - 279 KB]Guidance and best practices for analyzing data from the sexual identity and sex of sexual contacts questions.