Risk assessment
Survey tracks risk behaviors among Los Alamos high school students
Every other year, middle and high school students from districts across the state participate in a risk-assessment survey designed to track the prevalence of factors and behaviors that can lead to death and disability among New Mexico’s youth. The recently released 2023 results showed some promising trends for high school students in Los Alamos, though the data also highlight some areas of concern.
The biennial survey is conducted in the fall during odd-numbered years and is given to 6th through 12th grade students enrolled at select public schools across the state. Known as the New Mexico Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey (YRRS), participation is voluntary, and parents or guardians have the option to have their children excluded from taking the survey. The study is conducted by the New Mexico Public Education Department and the New Mexico Department of Health, and those behind the survey are scheduled to present recent findings later this month at Los Alamos High School.
The most recent YRRS report on Los Alamos County contains results from the 2023 survey of 285 high school students within Los Alamos Public Schools. A middle school report will be released separately.
The response rate to the high school survey was 76.9%, a rate state officials consider “excellent” because it “allows a high degree of confidence in results,” the report stated.
Overall, the data showed a decrease in many areas from the previous survey, specifically in categories such as alcohol use, sexual assaults, and suicidal ideations; however, several categories showed increases, such as suicide attempts and instances of violence.
In an email to Boomtown, LAPS Prevention Program Coordinator Kristine Coblentz said she’d assisted with the implementation within the district and that the survey’s findings are “utilized by staff and community partners to identify areas of strength and need so that we can effectively plan prevention and intervention programming and also seek additional funding for our efforts.”
A look at the numbers
Note: The report lists percentages in decimal forms. For simplification, many figures in this story have been rounded up.
Of the 285 survey respondents, 42% identified as cisgender boys, 38% as cisgender girls, slightly more than 1% identified as transgender boys, 1% as transgender girls, 2% as nonbinary, and 3% said they identified in some other way not listed. Slightly more than 12% selected an option that read: “I do not know what this question is asking.”
The survey also tracks sexual orientation of respondents and found that 72% identified as heterosexual, 15% as bisexual, 3% as gay or lesbian, 3% as some other way not listed, 5% said they were not sure about or were questioning their sexual identity, and nearly 3% said they did not know what the question was asking.
The New Mexico YRRS survey is part of a national survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.1 Both the New Mexico survey and the CDC survey track pernicious behaviors such as substance use, along with things like mental health stressors, and experiences of physical violence and sexual abuse. According to the CDC report, LGBTQ+ students are at a higher risk for substance use, worsening mental health, suicidal ideations, and are more likely to experience all forms of violence, including bullying.
The New Mexico YRRS reports do not specifically track violence against or the bullying of LGBTQ+ students in New Mexico, but the surveys do ask about incidents of bullying on campus, off campus, and online. In the 2023 survey, students in Los Alamos reported bullying at a higher rate than the rest of the state. Within LAPS, 25% of students said they’d been bullied on school property, compared to 17% statewide. That number is also up 9% from the 2021 Los Alamos survey, when 16% of respondents identified similar experiences.
Reports of electronic bullying were down slightly from the last survey but, at 14%, still higher than the state average of 12%. Slightly more than 20% of LAPS respondents said they’d been bullied because of their race or ethnicity, compared to 17% statewide, and 41% said they’d been treated unfairly in school because of their race or ethnicity, which is consistent with the statewide percentage.
When it comes to violent encounters, 9% of Los Alamos students reported experiencing physical violence related to dating, which is similar to statewide numbers, and 11% said they’d been sexually assaulted, compared to 10% statewide. Nearly 21% reported they’d been in a physical fight, also consistent with the statewide results. Meanwhile, 5% reported they’d carried a gun that wasn’t for sport or hunting, which is slightly below the statewide percentage. Only 4% of LAPS students said they’d skipped school because of safety concerns, compared to 15% statewide.
The survey results showed that the overall mental health of Los Alamos youth was similar to statewide averages, with suicidal ideations and suicide attempts being slightly lower in Los Alamos County compared to the rest of the state. Within the county, 5% of those responding to the survey said they had attempted suicide in the previous 12 months, with 2% of those attempts requiring hospitalization or medical treatment. According to the YRRS report, “Suicide remains the second leading cause of death among adolescents in New Mexico.”
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning students were more than three times as likely to have attempted suicide than straight students,” the New Mexico Department of Health reported during a Nov. 21, 2024, presentation to the Legislative Health & Human Services Committee. “Transgender or non-binary students were more than four times as likely to have attempted suicide than cisgender students.”
Again, the YRRS report does not specifically track suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among LGBTQ+ students, but overall, the number of suicide attempts in Los Alamos County was slightly lower than the 2021 report. However, more than 17% of LAPS students reported they’d “seriously considered suicide,” compared to 15% statewide. The 2023 number is slightly lower than it was in 2021 when nearly 19% of respondents in Los Alamos reported having had suicidal ideations.
Reported non-suicidal self-injury in the county for 2023 was 24%, compared to 19% in the state. Symptoms of anxiety were slightly higher than the statewide numbers, 31% versus 28%, while 20% of LAPS students reported symptoms of depression, which was lower than the state’s 25%.
The YRRS report stated, “Rates of youth alcohol use, drug use, and most tobacco use have continued to decrease among high school students, reaching their lowest level in more than a decade.”
Use of tobacco and electronic cigarettes was lower among Los Alamos students than students in the rest of the state, but alcohol use was slightly higher — 18% locally compared to 16% statewide. Only 3% of teens in Los Alamos County reported drinking and driving, which was slightly lower than the statewide average of 4%.
Use of almost all drugs, including cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids, was lower among students in Los Alamos than their statewide counterparts. The only exception was inhalants, which 3.4% Los Alamos students reported using compared to 2.7% of students statewide.
The survey results showed that at around 20%, Los Alamos students were just as sexually active as students statewide. Of those who reported being sexually active, 54% said they had used a condom during sex and 38% said they had used birth control, compared to 53% and 31%, respectively, of statewide respondents.
Public presentation
New Mexico Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey officials are scheduled to showcase their Los Alamos County findings during a Feb. 25 presentation at the Los Alamos High School Speech Theater, 1300 Diamond Drive, starting at 6 p.m.
Dr. Rebecca Kilburn, a research professor at the University of New Mexico’s Prevention Research Center, along with Dylan Pell, a mental health epidemiologist from the Department of Health, are scheduled to present highlights from the county survey.
According to a news release for the event, “light food and refreshments will be provided” and the event is for “anyone interested in the health and well-being of students, including school district staff, teachers, health professionals, students, parents, and other community members.”
Recently, the CDC report was deleted from the agency’s website after President Donald Trump ordered that information and data relating to LGBTQ+ rights be removed from U.S. government websites. As of this writing, the report had been restored following a court order, but with a censorious and scientifically unfounded statement about gender identity attached to the webpage. (Boomtown has uploaded a copy of the report to an independent document storage server in case it is removed from government websites once again. It can be read here.)
Be very careful of conclusions that are not statistically significant.