ORLANDO, Fla. — On the heels of the state’s so-called ”Don’t Say Gay” law, the Florida Department of Education has quietly dropped out of a 31-year-old CDC survey of students that includes questions of mental well-being, suicidal thoughts, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Mental health advocates called the move “an incredibly dangerous precedent” and said the data produced by the survey is essential for understanding the struggles of adolescents and teens and guiding public policy.
The department did not respond to a request to explain the decision.
Norín Dollard, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Florida Policy Institute and director of Florida KIDS COUNT, part of an annual assessment of child well-being in the United States, said Florida’s decision to withdraw from the survey “was done in darkness, without any type of opportunity for public input.”
“The (CDC survey) is a longstanding, trusted source of data that lawmakers, advocates, state agencies and nonprofits have relied on over the years to identify trends in potentially harmful behavior among Florida’s youth,” Dollard said. “Without the survey, it is unclear how the state intends to analyze things like the prevalence of bullying and mental illness among teens.”
Formally known as the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the confidential questionnaire from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conducted statewide in public high schools every other year. Its nearly 100 questions cover diet, exercise, smoking, self-image, bullying, drug-use, access to guns, use of birth control, sexual and physical abuse and eating disorders.
It also asks students about their sexual orientation and gender identity, although in each case one of the multiple-choice answers is: “I do not know what this question is asking.”
The purpose of the survey, as noted on the Florida Department of Health website, is to “monitor priority health-risk behaviors that contribute substantially to the leading causes of death, disability and social problems among youth, which contribute to patterns in adulthood.”
The state website also notes: “The YRBS has been supported by many agencies, including the Florida Departments of Education, Children and Families, and Juvenile Justice, school districts throughout the state, and the Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) at the CDC.”
The Florida Department of Health also did not respond to a request for comment.
“The whole intention of the survey is to make good public health policy,” Dollard said. “If you don’t have the data, you can’t do that.”
In past years, for instance, the data have revealed the heightened risk of suicide among LGBTQ students, increased rates of vaping among teens and an epidemic of cyber-bullying.
But the survey seems particularly urgent as the rates of teen depression and suicide rise, several advocates said. In the fall of 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health.
In addition, Dollard and others noted, it will be important to track the impact of the state’s new Parental Choice In Education legislation — dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by opponents — on the mental health of LGBTQ students. The law prohibits discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools up to the third grade or “in a manner that is not age-appropriate” in higher grades.
“Part of the power of [this survey] is that it allows for the analysis of data by sub-groups, including LGBTQ youth, so that the needs of these students, who are at a greater risk of depression, suicide and substance abuse than their peers, are understood and can be supported by schools and community providers,” Dollard wrote in urging state leaders to reverse their decision.
Marni Stahlman, president and CEO of the Mental Health Association of Central Florida, echoed the sentiment, saying the state’s withdrawal could not come at a worse time.
“It’s an incredibly dangerous precedent to have set,” she said. “It’s the only way that we can look at what’s happening in real time, and for the state to have made this decision without input seems almost capricious. I don’t know of any individual group or organization that was aware that this was even a consideration. ... It reminds me of something that my grandmother used to do when she didn’t want to know the answer to something. She just didn’t ask the question.”
Across the nation, 46 states and approximately 40 additional sites — including local school districts, U.S. territories and tribal organizations — participate in the surveys.
“It’s one of those staple resources that just tells us how well our families are doing, particularly our kids that are at high risk,” said Pam Gould, an Orange County School Board member and president and CEO of the healthcare nonprofit Shepherd’s Hope.
“With all the mental health issues that are going on right now in the wake of COVID and its isolation, and just everything that is happening with our kids, I want to know all the data,” she said. “I don’t want data hidden and then find out later that we let our students down because we just didn’t know.”
Under the previous contract with the CDC, Florida received funding and technical assistance to conduct the survey and report its findings. Paul Fulton Jr., a CDC spokesperson, said the state has participated since 1991, when the survey was launched.
In addition to the high school survey, a handful of Florida school districts — including Orange, Duval, Broward, Hillsborough, Pasco and Palm Beach — conducted a CDC survey of middle school students. Fulton said it is likely that the state has withdrawn from those surveys, too, although it was not immediately clear.
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