Participatory Survey Data Analysis as Catalyst for Empowering Youth as School Health Change Agents

Abstract

Addressing and preventing the major health issues affecting American adolescents requires collaborative and authentic youth participation. Our current time reflects a pendulum shift toward authentic youth voice and democratic participation in school wellness and reform. In this application article, we outline and describe a youthadult partnership curriculum to engage youth as change agents in their school community through youth-led research activities with publicly available and locally derived data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey. Getting to "Y": Youth Bring Meaning to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (GTY) is a positive youth development/youth participatory action research initiative, whereby students analyze their school health data and use those data as a starting point to create change in their school community. Focus groups were conducted with GTY youth and adult alumni in spring 2018. Results from the focus group data reinforce the GTY core assumptions and speak to the importance of structured opportunities for youth agency. GTY is a scalable, developmentally appropriate, resource-efficient, and empirically based curriculum that provides structured opportunities for youth-led research utilizing local Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey data as a youth-adult partnership model to increase youth agency and engagement with school/community health needs.

Impact of Engaging Students in Health Survey Data Analysis and as Full Partners in School Change: Results From a Mixed Methods Study

“…Building on the GTY theoretical concept overview (Garnett, 2019), this formal research sets the stage for subsequent studies regarding (1) key variables in the program design that contribute to its positive impact, (2) systemic changes resulting from change efforts, and (3) key factors in embedding and sustaining similar YPAR/PYD/YAP models into public school settings on a regional scope.…”

“…Getting to Y: Youth Bring Meaning to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (GTY) is a positive youth development initiative, whereby students analyze local youth health data and create change. This article adds definitive evidence to support the theoretical foundations of GTY expounded by Garnett et al (2019). A mixed methods convergent study design, collecting quantitative data from pre-and postintervention surveys and qualitative data from focus groups, was enacted during the 2018-2019 school year.…”

“…YPAR, PYD, and YAP together form a synergistic youth-centered structure and guiding principles for health intervention and social change (Hall, 2019). These frameworks provided interdisciplinary empirical support and structure for this mixed methods evaluation of GTY by (1) identifying student-level outcomes to assess and (2) informing the qualitative data collection protocol development to complement the operationalization of these frameworks in the design and implementation of GTY (Garnett, 2019).…”

“…Based on a belief that schools were not providing meaningful ways to engage youth as change agents, the Getting to ‘Y’: Youth Bring Meaning to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (GTY) initiative was developed in 2008, supported by the Vermont Agency of Education’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funding. GTY is a positive youth development initiative that is evidence based, theoretically informed, and guided by several dominant models of youth engagement and youth participatory action research (Garnett et al, 2019). The founding hypothesis stated that young people would experience an increase in self-efficacy, resilience and protective factors, and capacity for self-advocacy in the health domain if provided with knowledge, skills, and opportunity to be change agents in the health and wellness of their community.…”

“…GTY participants use these data to inform change in their schools and communities, pacing through six steps over the course of a year (Figure 1). Core GTY components and theoretical foundations are detailed in Garnett et al (2019). Since 2008, youth in 44% of Vermont’s middle and high schools have become health data analysts and activists through GTY, with adult partners by their sides.…”