The Student Health Survey results were presented to the public via a game show format that encouraged discussion on the relevant topics covered in the survey. — Photos by Jason Andrew Park

By Jason Andrew Park

The results of the Somerville High School (SHS) Student Health Survey are in and, for the most part, they are optimistic.

The number of current SHS students reporting alcohol use fell in 2014, as 20.6 percent said they used alcohol in the past 30 days – a drop of 8.3 percent compared to 2012 when the last survey was administered. The results show drug use remained low although some usage fell compared to previous years.

“The main thing is that most kids in Somerville High School are not doing drugs. Most of them are not,” said Cory Mashburn, Prevention Director of Somerville Cares About Prevention (SCAP).

Current cocaine use was at a mere 0.5 percent, an all-time low since the survey was first administered in 2004. Methamphetamine use also dropped from a high of 1.9 percent in 2004 to a low of 0.3 percent. Heroin and ecstasy use among students also fell.

The youth group leaders of a youth group run by the city’s SCAP program called Somerville Positive Forces 100 (SPF100), presented the survey results in a game show format that involved members of the audience guessing among a variety of answer choices. The game show was an interactive way to disseminate the results of the survey to the audience and dispel any current preconceived misconceptions they may have had.

“We saw that people had huge misperceptions about the behaviors of young people. Part of this event is to help correct some of those misperceptions,” said Lovelee Heller-Bottari, SCAP Program Director.

The Student Health Survey, similar to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, was administered to 1,002 9-12th SHS grade students last February. The survey asked questions on about substance abuse, mental health, resiliency, violence, safety, sexual and physical health.

But the news is not all encouraging – the survey results suggest that mental health issues among SHS students are on the rise.

More than 15 percent of students said they have hurt or injured themselves on purpose in the past year – a 3.1 percent increase from the previous. The number of student who reported they had contemplated suicide also grew. About 12 percent of students said they made plans to commit suicide in 2014 compared to 8.6 percent in 2012.

“Suicide went up a little bit. For the mental health side, some kids are getting to the stage of suicidal thoughts or attempting suicide and that is something we need to be focusing on,” Mashburn explained.

Current SHS students also felt that mental health was a rising epidemic and there should be a designated school representative they could talk to about these issues.

During an interview, SHS eleventh grader and SPF100 group leader Mosammat Jahan said there are many issues the school should focus on including mental health and violence. “We should have a counselor that we could personally talk to about how we feel,” she said.

Both Mashburn and Heller-Bottari plan to use this data to continue targeting the hot topic areas to improve and promote better health of the young adults in Somerville through different community programs.