Healthy Beginnings / Decreasing Frequency of Sad or Hopeless Feelings in Youth

Indicator: Percent of students reporting sad or hopeless feelings (7th, 9th, and 11th grades)

Description: Percentage of public school students in grades 7, 9, 11, and non-traditional* students reporting whether in the past 12 months they had felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more that they stopped doing some usual activities.

Data Limitations: Targets were set using gender disparities since racial/ethnic disparities are not available by grade level. Racial/ethnic and level of connectedness to school data is available when the pool of students includes non-traditional students. From kidsdata.org: “Non-Traditional students are those enrolled in Community Day Schools or Continuation Education; according to Ed-Data, these schools make up about 10% of all public schools in California. N/A indicates that the survey was not administered in that period or that data are not available for that group. LNE (Low Number Event) indicates that for a specific answer there were fewer than 25 respondents. N/R indicates that the sample is too small to be representative.”

Indicator Source: California Healthy Kids Survey (County-level weighted proportions); California Student Survey (State-level weighted proportions). Both of these surveys are affiliated with WestEd (www.wested.org). The query is powered by kidsdata.org.

Indicator Calculation Methodology: The 2011-2013 time period reflects data from school years 2011-12 and 2012-13. District and county level figures are weighted proportions from the 2011-13 California Healthy Kids Survey, and state level figures are weighted proportions from the 2011-13 California Student Survey.

Data Collection Methodology: https://chks.wested.org

Program URL Link: https://www.kidsdata.org/topic/68/youth-emotional-health/summary

Geographic Granularity: County

Data categorized by:

Race/ethnicity: African American/Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic/Latino, Multiracial, Other, Native American/Pacific Islander, White (for all adolescents, but not by grade 7, 9, and 11)
Sex: Female, Male (for grades 7, 9, and 11 only)

Other demographic: Grade level: 7th Grade, 9th Grade, 11th Grade, Non-Traditional; Level of Connectedness to School: High, Medium, Low (The level of school connectedness is based on a scale created from student responses to 5 survey questions. See the guidebooks for the “Core” or “Resilience and Youth Development” survey modules at https://chks.wested.org/about for more information.)

Reporting Cycle: Every 2 Years

Reporting Lag: 2011-2013; 2 Years

National Benchmark Indicator: (not available)

Tags (Keywords): Depression, mental health, emotional health, depression-related feelings, sad or hopeless feelings, adolescents, 7th grade, 9th grade, 11th grade

1. Office of Health Equity. (August 2015). Portrait of Promise: California Statewide Plan to Promote Health Equity and Mental Health Equity. California Department of Public Health. https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OHE/CDPH%20Document%20Library/Accessible-CDPH_OHE_Disparity_Report_Final%20(2).pdf

2. Emotional/Mental Health Summary. (2015). Retrieved November 17, 2015, from www.kidsdata.org: https://www.kidsdata.org/topic/68/emotionalmental-health/summary