Friday, June 09, 2006

Report on Hispanic Mental Health in the Schools

An interesting report which was conducted by the Center for Disease Control reports that Hispanic teenagers are at risk for many mental health issues. The CDC survey of nearly 14,000 U.S. high school students has been conducted every other year, since 1991. Results reported Thursday were from last year's survey. Some of the more interesting findings were:


  • More than 11 percent of all Latino students - and 15 percent of Latino girls - said they had attempted suicide. The white and black rates were about 7.5 percent.
  • Latinos also reported much higher rates of using cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and methamphetamines.
  • Hispanics report that their use of condoms was at lower rates than the other population groups.
  • About 36 percent of Hispanics reported prolonged feelings of sadness or hopelessness, slightly higher than previous years. In contrast, about 28.5 percent of black students reported such feelings in the 2005 survey, about the same as two previous surveys. And about 26 percent of white students reported such feelings, down slightly from 2003 and 2001.
  • 1 in 8 Latino students said they had done cocaine, 1 in 10 had done ecstasy, 1 in 11 methamphetamines and 1 in 28 heroin.



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