IYD: News & Views - Measuring the Risk

News & Views: News Release

The Institute for Youth Development (IYD) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes a consistent, comprehensive risk avoidance message to youth for the leading harmful risk behaviors. IYD may be contacted at (703) 433-1640 or by writing P.O. Box 16560, Washington, DC 20041.

IYD Releases America's Youth: Measuring the Risk Most Young People Succeeding in the Face of Five Related Risk Factors

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 23) - The Institute for Youth Development (IYD) has released America's Youth: Measuring the Risk, 2nd edition, a comprehensive review of data showing that, while young people are at risk of being snared by a "web" of five, inextricably linked risk factors, most are successfully navigating adolescence.

The five major risk factors facing youth today - alcohol, drugs, sex, tobacco, and violence - are interconnected, the report concludes. For example, youth ages 12-17 who smoke are 8 times more likely to use illicit drugs and 11 times more likely to drink heavily than nonsmoking youths. And 87% of 14-15 year-olds who are regular users of marijuana have had sexual intercourse.

At the same time, America's Youth: Measuring the Risk shows that, despite these risks, most youngsters are faring well. For example:

Less than 30% of 12-17 year-olds report having used alcohol in the past month;
Nearly 70% of 10th graders have never used marijuana;
70% of 15-year-olds have never had sexual intercourse;
An estimated 70% of all adolescents have not smoked cigarettes in the last year;
Less than one-half of 1% of juveniles were arrested for a violent offense in 1992.

"We must celebrate those youth who are succeeding, but at the same time we must recognize that the risks facing them are serious, each potentially leading to greater dangers," commented IYD founder and president Shepherd Smith. "It is the great degree of interconnection between risk factors that convinced us to move beyond our work at Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy - for which we are largely known - and to take a broader approach to the problems facing youth by creating the Institute for Youth Development."