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Lynchburg youth survey shows increases in vaping and some violence indicators; health board outlines community actions
Summary
A Central Virginia Health District presentation of the Lynchburg youth survey reported a 53.5% response rate and highlighted rising vaping and self‑reported driving under the influence of marijuana, increased reports of fights and threats with weapons, and mixed trends on bullying and mental health.
Central Virginia Health District staff and the Lynchburg School Health Advisory Board presented results of the Lynchburg Youth Survey to the Lynchburg City School Board, describing trends in violence, substance use, relationships, mental health and healthy lifestyles.
Kim Foster, population health manager for the Central Virginia Health District, said the locally administered survey — adapted from the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey — produced a 53.5% response rate from district eighth-, tenth- and twelfth-grade students and is intended to show trends not causation. Foster highlighted an increase in reported vaping and said only half of students consider electronic vapor products risky. The presenter also said more students reported driving under the influence of marijuana than under the influence of alcohol in this data set.
Foster said indicators of violence and safety require attention: threats or injury with a weapon and physical fights on school property rose compared with the prior survey, and “9.1 percent of students report having experienced [sexual/intimate] violence in the past year,” language used in the presentation. On positive measures, Foster noted higher seat-belt use and that carrying a weapon to school remains rare.
On mental health, Foster said 30% of students reported feeling so sad or hopeless for two weeks or more in the past year that they stopped doing usual activities, a measure that remained below state and national levels; the majority reported never intentionally harming themselves and indicators of consideration or attempts of suicide declined from peak post‑pandemic levels.
Presenters recommended community-wide actions across five themes: violence and safety (including education about marijuana and driving), substance-use prevention (vaping awareness and peer-disapproval norms), relationships and social supports (bullying prevention, digital safety education, STI awareness), mental-health supports (expanded community resources and targeted interventions), and healthy lifestyles (education about youth fasting risks and attention to gambling-related risks). Foster and committee members said the full dataset and subcommittee recommendations will be available to community partners for use in planning and grant applications.
