In 2009 the Tooele County School District launched a media campaign called “Most Don’t,” aimed at letting people know that most local students don’t use alcohol.
With the results of a recent survey of student use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, the school district could add to that campaign title — “and now even more don’t.”
Julie Spindler, safe school coordinator with the Tooele County School District, reviewed the results of the 2017 Student Health and Risk Prevention Survey with the school board during its Tuesday night meeting.
The SHARP survey shows that in 2017, 8.3 out of every 10 local students surveyed reported they had not tried more than a few sips of alcohol in their lifetime. In 2009 when the school district, with the help of a federal grant, launched the “Most Don’t” campaign, that number was 7 out of 10.
The percent of local students reporting the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs 30-days prior to taking the survey declined or stayed the same for all substances measured in comparison to 2015’s SHARP survey.
“We are on track with decreasing our usage rates,” Spindler said.”We have been touted as one of the premier places for our collaboration and what we do with our students, not just academically but also behaviorally and in prevention services.”
For example, 30-day alcohol use among Tooele County students dropped from 24 percent on the first SHARP survey in 1997 to 5.3 percent in 2017.
“Our lifetime use is now about where our 30-day use used to be,” Spindler said. “That tells quite a story.”
Also, in most substance abuse categories, the percentage of students in Tooele County reporting the use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs in the last 30 days was lower in 2017 than the percentage reported statewide in 2017.
In some substance categories, the decline among local students was the opposite of the statewide trend.
“We are one of the only counties where e-cigarette use has dropped,” Spindler said.
Statewide, the reported use of alcohol in the last 30 days went up from 6.5 percent in 2015 to 6.7 percent in 2017. In Tooele County, the reported use of alcohol in the last 30 days went down from 7.8 percent in 2015 to 5.3 percent in 2017.
The SHARP survey not only measures reported use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, it also reports on mental health and suicide indicators.
Suicidality among Tooele County students decreased in 2017 compared to 2015, while statewide the indicators of suicidality went up, according to the survey.
The number of students in Tooele County who reported that they had attempted suicide in the last year dropped from 8.9 percent in 2015 to 7.8 percent in 2017.
Statewide the percentage of students who reported they had attempted suicide in the last year rose from 6.7 percent in 2015 to 7.1 percent in 2017.
Tooele County is the only school district in the state with a decrease in suicidality from two years ago, according to Spindler.
“We really are the superstar with all we have done in suicide prevention,” Spindler said. “If you go to any conference, they are talking about what Tooele County has done. From the school district, to Communities that Care, and Valley Behavioral Health, we have all collaborated and made it a mission to talk about suicide prevention among our youth and our adult population.”
In other behavioral categories, local students also ranked lower than their statewide counterparts in seven out of eight areas of antisocial behavior in the SHARP survey.
The SHARP survey also reports on risk and protective factors for youth problem behaviors. Similar to how medical researchers have identified risk and protective factors for conditions like heart disease and diabetes, social science researchers have identified risk and protective factors for youth antisocial behavior.
Using results from the SHARP survey in states across the nation, developers of the survey have developed a population-weighted average normative score for each risk and behavior factor.
In 2017, local students rated at or below the norm for 22 out of 23 risk factors. Some of those risk factors are low neighborhood attachment, family conflict, low commitment to school, and parental attitudes towards drug use.
The only risk factor where Tooele County rated higher than the norm was the perceived availability of handguns.
The availability of handguns is also related to a higher risk of crime and substance abuse, according to the survey.
The response of local students in 2017 to questions about the availability of handguns rated Tooele County at 33.8 for the perceived availability of handguns. The state rated at 28.7 and the norm reported by the survey’s developer was 28.8.
When it comes to protective factors, Tooele County rated at or above the norm for all 10 protective factors.
The SHARP survey is conducted every other year. It includes data from students in sixth to 12th grade in the Tooele County School District. In March 2017, 5,335 students took the survey.
The survey requires parental permission and respondents’ answers are anonymous. Teachers make a concerted effort to get permission slips returned by parents leading to a high participation rate, according to Spindler. The survey is constructed with internal checks for validity.
The results of the survey are used by school and community prevention specialists to measure success, evaluate new trends that need to be addressed, and to apply for grants to fund prevention programs.
“We are doing a good job,” Spindler said. “We have room to grow and things that we definitely can focus on.”
The complete results of the 2017 SHARP Survey will be posted in the News section of the Tooele County School District website, www.tooeleschools.org.