York City High School Students Research Articles

NYC Mayor promises mental telehealth support for HS students

All New York City high school students will have access to mental health support through telehealth programs, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Jan. 26, his first major effort to address growing concerns about student well‐being, Chalkbeat New York reported. “This year we're rolling out the biggest student mental health program in the country,” Adams said during his annual State of the City speech. “We will provide our high school students with everything from telehealth care to community‐based counseling, depending on their individual needs.” Many students experienced trauma during the pandemic, including the loss of loved ones and frayed social bonds during long periods of isolation. Mental health professionals have seen increases in anxiety, suicidal thoughts and behavior challenges; trends that have raised alarms. School districts across the country are increasingly leaning on telehealth, which may help ease some barriers to mental health care and could make students or families more likely to attend sessions. Still, telehealth requires access to devices, internet, and private space, which may be difficult to guarantee depending on whether students will be expected to access services from home. The city is still exploring how to deliver telehealth services, a spokesperson for the city's health department wrote in an email, offering no further comment about how the program will work.

Sexual health and Risk-Taking behaviors among New York city high school students: variation by sexual orientation and gender identity status

Few sexual health studies have examined subgroup differences in youth risk behaviors that sufficiently account for sexual orientation and gender identity. This study used 2017 New York City Youth Risk Behavior Survey data (N = 10,191), a stratified cluster-sampled survey, to examine descriptive differences in the prevalence of risky sexual behaviors, such as failing to use contraception and engaging in sexual activity while intoxicated, among others. Weighted logistic regression analyses revealed that LGBTQ youth were more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors than non-LGBTQ youth, placing them at increased risk of pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Results suggest the need for prevention and intervention programs, and more fundamentally, basic health education and care for these adolescents whose risk for sexual and reproductive health concerns outweighs their non-LGBTQ peers.

DNA Barcoding of Online Herbal Supplements: Crowd-sourcing Pharmacovigilance in High School.

Herbal medicinal products (HMPs) have grown increasingly popular in the United States, many of them with imported raw materials and sold online. Yet due to the lack of regulation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), manufacturers of the products can substitute or add in other herbs that are not advertised on the label. In this study, as part of the Urban Barcode Research Program (UBRP), an education initiative to engage New York City high school students in science, we aimed to taxonomically authenticate single-ingredient online-sold HMPs containing non-native plants through DNA barcoding of the internal transcribed spacer 2 region (ITS2) and matK. We were able to successfully barcode 20 HMPs, but four of these did not match the expected species. It was concluded that the four HMPs advertising astragalus, epazote, ginseng, and chanca piedra were contaminated/ substituted because their ITS2 and matK DNA sequences did not match the expected taxonomy in GenBank, a government database. Our study highlights the importance of herbal pharmacovigilance in the absence of strict government regulation of herbal supplements and motivates crowd-sourced DNA barcoding to enable American consumers make informed choices and be more empowered to safeguard their health.

Conservative Ideological Shift Among Adolescents in Response to System Threat

Abstract. We examined conservative ideological shift among adolescents by assessing the effect of different types of threat on the self-reported political orientation of 183 New York City high school students and investigated the mediating role of system justification. Participants read one of three newspaper passages: (1) a system-related passage that described flaws in the American social, economic, and political system; (2) a self-related passage that described the deleterious health effects of cell phone use; or (3) a control passage that described house plant cultivation. Participants then completed measures of system justification and political orientation. As hypothesized, a threat to the system (but not the self) increased self-reported conservatism indirectly through its effect on system justification. This suggests that when the overarching social system is threatened, adolescents may be drawn to conservative ideology and that this is attributable, at least in part, to a heightened desire to defend and bolster the societal status quo.

Examining the Intersection of Bullying and Physical Relationship Violence Among New York City High School Students.

Research is just beginning to explore the intersection of bullying and relationship violence. The relationship between these forms of youth aggression has yet to be examined in diverse urban centers, including New York City (NYC). This study seeks to identify intersections of joint victimization from bullying and electronic bullying (e-bullying) with physical relationship violence (pRV). This study examines data from the NYC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), a representative sample of NYC public high school students, to assess the concurrent victimization from bullying at school and e-bullying with pRV, operationalized as physical violence by a dating partner in the past 12 months. Students who reported being bullied at school and e-bullied had increased odds (bullied: OR = 2.5, 95% CI [2.1, 2.9]; e-bullied: OR = 3.0, 95% CI [2.6, 3.5]) of also being victimized by pRV compared with those who did not report being bullied or e-bullied. In logistic regression models, being bullied at school and being e-bullied remained significant predictors of students' odds of reporting pRV (bullied: AOR = 2.6, 95% CI [2.2, 3.1]; e-bullied: AOR = 3.0, 95% CI [2.5, 3.6]) while controlling for race, gender, sexual orientation, and age. This research is the first to assess the intersection of victimization from bullying and e-bullying with pRV in a large, diverse, random sample of urban high school students. In this sample, students who report being bullied or e-bullied are more likely also to report pRV than students who have not been bullied or e-bullied. This research has potential implications for educators, adolescent health and social service providers, and policy makers to tailor programs and enact policies that jointly address bullying and pRV. Future studies are needed to longitudinally assess both victimization from and perpetration of bullying and pRV.

Behaviors and Knowledge of HealthCorps New York City High School Students: Nutrition, Mental Health, and Physical Activity.

HealthCorps provides school wellness programming using curricula to promote changes in nutrition, mental health, and physical activity behaviors. The research objective was to evaluate effects of implementing its curricula on nutrition, mental health, and physical activity knowledge and behavior. Pre- and postsurvey data were collected (N = 2255) during the 2012-2013 academic year from 14 New York City public high schools. An 18-item knowledge questionnaire addressed 3 domains; 26 behavioral items were analyzed by factor analysis to identify 6 behavior domains, breakfast being a seventh 1-item domain. We examined the effects stratified by sex, applying mixed-effects models to take into account clustering effects of schools and participants adjusted for age. The HealthCorps program significantly increased all 3 knowledge domains (p < .05), and significantly changed several key behavioral domains. Boys significantly increased fruits/vegetables intake (p = .03). Girls increased acceptance of new fruits/vegetables (p = .03) and breakfast consumption (p = .04), and decreased sugar-sweetened beverages and energy dense food intake (p = .03). The associations between knowledge and behavior were stronger in boys than girls. The HealthCorps program significantly increased participants' knowledge on nutrition, mental health, and physical activity. It also improved several key behavioral domains, which are targets of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines to address obesity in youth.

Sexual Orientation and Risk of Pregnancy Among New York City High-School Students.

We examined associations between sexual orientation and pregnancy risk among sexually experienced New York City high-school students. We analyzed data from 2005, 2007, and 2009 New York City Youth Risk Behavior Surveys. We excluded students who had never engaged in sexual intercourse, only had same-gender sexual partners, or had missing data on variables of interest, resulting in a final sample of 4892 female and 4811 male students. We employed multivariable logistic regression to examine pregnancy risk by sexual orientation, measured as self-reported sexual identity and gender of sexual partners, with adjustment for demographics and sexual behaviors. We stratified analyses by gender. Overall, 14.3% of female and 10.8% of male students had experienced a pregnancy. Students who identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual or reported both male and female sexual partners had higher odds of pregnancy than heterosexual students or students who only had opposite-gender sexual partners. Sexual behaviors accounted for higher odds of pregnancy among female, but only partially accounted for higher odds of pregnancy involvement among male, sexual-minority students. Sexual orientation should be considered in future adolescent pregnancy-prevention efforts, including the design of pregnancy-prevention interventions.

Does Small High School Reform Lift Urban Districts? Evidence From New York City

Research finds that small high schools deliver better outcomes than large high schools for urban students. An important outstanding question is whether this better performance is gained at the expense of losses elsewhere: Does small school reform lift the whole district? We explore New York City’s small high school reform in which hundreds of new small high schools were built in less than a decade. We use rich individual student data on four cohorts of New York City high school students and estimate effects of schools on student outcomes. Our results suggest that the introduction of small schools improved outcomes for students in all types of schools: large, small, continuously operating, and new. Small school reform lifted all boats.

Abstract P310: Impact of HealthCorps Program on Participating New York City High School Students' Knowledge of Nutrition, Mental Health and Physical Activity

Introduction: HealthCorps provides school wellness programming using curricula to promote changes in nutrition, mental health and physical activity behaviors. The research objective was to evaluate the effect of implementing its curricula on nutrition, mental health and physical activity knowledge and behavior. Hypothesis: That the HealthCorps program has positively effects on student knowledge and health behaviors in 14 public New York City high schools. Methods: Pre- and post-survey data were collected (N=2255) during 2012-13 academic year from New York City public high schools (N=14). An 18-item knowledge survey addressed three domains; 26 behavioral items were analyzed by factor analysis to identify 6 behavior domains, breakfast being a seventh one-item domain. We examined the effects stratified by gender, applying multi-level mixed-effects models to take into account clustering effects of schools and participants adjusted for age. Results: The HealthCorps program significantly increased all three knowledge domains (p&lt;0.05). HealthCorps curricula significantly changed several key behavioral domains. Specifically, among boys, curricula significantly increased fruits/vegetables intake (p=0.03). Among girls, it increased acceptance of new fruits/vegetables (p=0.03), decreased sugar-sweetened beverages and energy dense food intake (p=0.03), but decreased breakfast consumption (p=0.04). The associations between knowledge and behavior were stronger in boys than girls. Conclusion: The HealthCorps program significantly increased participants’ knowledge on nutrition, mental health and physical activity. It also improved several key behavioral domains, which are targets of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines to address obesity in youth.

Sorting Out the Sort

This letter documents the conversations of a participatory action research team consisting of one doctoral student and eight New York City high school students. The letter documents the process of creating the instrument that was used to collect data from other lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer and questioning students. The dissertation research seeks to understand the language, policies, and behavior about sexuality and gender expression in schools, and LGBTQ young people's interpretations of them. Using Foucault and Butler to explain how young people interact with norms of sexuality and gender in contingent and contextualized ways, the researchers began to think about the discourses around sexuality and gender with a more historicized and complex lens and to examine subjectivity within those discourses. The researchers elected to use a modified Q sort to understand the intersection of the school community's attitudes and beliefs with individual student attitudes and beliefs, ultimately to understand LGBTQ students' sense of belonging in their schools.

The Effects of the Good Behavior Game on the Conduct of Regular Education New York City High School Students

The efficacy of the Good Behavior Game was examined in a multiethnic New York City public high school. Classroom rules were posted and students were divided into two teams. A reinforcement preference questionnaire was used to select daily and weekly prizes. The classroom teacher indicated that he was going to place a check on the board after every rule infraction as he named rule violators and their infractions. Students were also told that the team with the fewest marks at the end of each day would become the daily winners and receive prizes. They were also told that the team with the fewest marks for the week would be recognized as the weekly winners and receive additional prizes. The rate of disruptive behavior was charted across four treatment phases using a reversal design. The game phases were associated with marked reductions in the rate of seat leaving, talking without permission, and aggression. Teacher and student feedback supported the social validity of the procedure.

Global literacy: comparing Chinese and US high school students

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to compare high school students' global literacy level in metropolitan areas of China and the USA.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted a global literacy instrument to surveyed 2,157 New York City (NYC) high school students and 2,220 Chinese high school students. This paper adopted an independent sample t‐test and an ANOVA to identify significant differences regarding demographic features on the Likert‐scale items, and used the Pearson correlation coefficient to explore the degree of association between factors.FindingsFrom this global literacy scale, compared with NYC high school students, Chinese students have greater awareness of comprehending and appreciating cross‐cultural perspectives, becoming global citizens, and exhibited greater approval of the performance of their own country's interconnectedness and interdependence with other countries. Students in the two countries exhibited similar confidence in using new literacies.Practical implicationsStudents would pay close attention to global issues if they were aware of how these issues affect their daily life and future. With critical‐thinking abilities, students would be in a better position to make decisions that contribute to the common good. With awareness of diverse cultures, students could learn the values, strengths, and weaknesses of people. With fluency in new literacies, students could research and analyze information from multiple resources, and collaborate with others through the use of technology.Originality/valueThis paper profiles the global literacy of US and Chinese high school students, describes factors correlated with both US and Chinese students' global literacy, and suggests students' preferences regarding “global education”‐related activities.

The exploration of New York City high school students' global literacy

Purpose – When facing greater demands in the international job market and the innovative development and use of technologies, the youth needs a new set of skills and attitudes to succeed in an increasing well‐educated global workforce. It is essential that educators prepare high school students' global literacy. In this paper, the authors survey high school students in New York City (NYC) to learn about their global literacy levels and to summarize results and interpret implications for educators.Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted a global literacy instrument to survey 2,157 high school students. They adopted an independent sample t‐test and an ANOVA to identify significant differences regarding demographic features on the Likert‐scale items, used cross‐tab analysis to present the profile of participants, and used the Pearson correlation coefficient to explore the degree of association between factors.Findings – From this global literacy scale, NYC high school students have relatively stron...

A botanical macroscope.

In 2003 zoologists proposed a short, standardized DNA sequence from a uniform locality on the genome to serve as a DNA barcode to identify the species of tissue from almost all animals—reliably, quickly, and economically. In 2008 two New York City high school students, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss (1), used the accumulating barcode reference library to prove that about ¼ of fish items they purchased in Manhattan were inaccurately labeled. Their “Sushigate” investigation earned front page coverage in the New York Times and attention from top managers at major food retailers and caterers.

The Teen Outreach Reproductive CHallenge: Improving Adolescent Health Care Delivery Through Peer Education Projects

ABSTRACT The Teen Outreach Reproductive CHallenge (TORCH) is a peer education program that provides information on various topics relevant to adolescent sexual health to a diverse audience, ranging from teens to health care providers. This information is disseminated through various projects by a group of New York City high-school students who are extensively trained to become peer educators. One TORCH project is the peer leadership and advocacy project, in which peer educators perform workshops related to issues of sexual health and rights for New York City teens. Another TORCH project is the Adolescent Health Care Communication Project, which focuses on improving communication between health care providers and adolescents. In addition, there is the Adolescent Standardized Patient Project, where selected TORCH members act as standardized patients in medical training programs. The goal of TORCH is to empower youth to educate their peers as well as health care providers about adolescent sexual health issues.

“Our Leaders Are Us”: Youth Activism in Social Movements Project

In this article, we describe the development and implementation of a project, “Our Leaders Are Us: Youth Activism in Social Movements”, that we undertook with New York City high school students exploring events leading up to and following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown. As part of a 50th anniversary celebration of the Brown decision, we designed a series of three workshops that sought to extend urban students’ knowledge of Brown, segregation, and activism and to examine the roles of young people in critical civil rights campaigns. In addition, we discussed with students the ways in which young people can be involved in contemporary social movements and the strategies they can use to effect what they perceive to be needed changes in their lives. Along with the researchers’ extensive field notes, the participating students completed questionnaires throughout the project so that their understanding of Brown and related issues could be documented. Using our findings, we suggest ways that educators can develop and implement similar programs for use in schools.

The Mental Health Impact of 9/11 on Inner-City High School Students 20 Miles North of Ground Zero

Purpose To determine the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after 9/11 in a sample of New York City high school students and associations among personal exposure, loss of psychosocial resources, prior mental health treatment, and PTSD. Methods A total of 1214 students (grades 9 through 12) attending a large community high school in Bronx County, 20 miles north of “Ground Zero,” completed a 45-item questionnaire during gym class on one day eight months after 9/11. Students were primarily Hispanic (62%) and African American (29%) and lived in the surrounding neighborhood. The questionnaire included the PCL-T, a 17-item PTSD checklist supplied by the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The PCL-T was scored following the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD requiring endorsement of at least one repeating symptom, two hyperarousal symptoms, and three avoidance symptoms. Bivariate analysis comparing PTSD with personal exposure, loss of psychosocial resources, and mental health variables was done and multiple logistic regression was used to identify significant associations. Results There were 7.4 % of students with the PTSD symptom cluster. Bivariate analysis showed a trend for females to have higher rates of PTSD (males [6%] vs. females [9%], p = .06] with no overall ethnic differences. Five of the six personal exposure variables, and both of the loss of psychosocial resources and mental health variables were significantly associated with PTSD symptom cluster. Multiple logistic regression analysis found one personal exposure variable (having financial difficulties after 9/11, odds ratio [OR] = 5.27; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.9–9.7); both the loss of psychosocial resources variables (currently feeling less safe, OR = 3.58; 95% CI 1.9–6.8) and currently feeling less protected by the government, (OR = 4.04; 95% CI 2.1–7.7); and one mental health variable (use of psychotropic medication before 9/11, OR = 3.95; 95% CI 1.2–13.0) were significantly associated with PTSD symptom cluster. Conclusions We found a rate of PTSD in Bronx students after 9/11 that was much higher than other large studies of PTSD in adolescents done before 9/11. Adolescents living in inner cities with high poverty and violence rates may be at high risk for PTSD after a terrorist attack. Students who still felt vulnerable and less safe eight months later and those with prior mental health treatment were four times more likely to have PTSD than those without such characteristics, highlighting the influence of personality and mental health on development of PTSD after a traumatic event.

The Last Page

Signs and portents abounded that Good Friday in New Orleans as our group of New York City high school students, parents, and teachers rolled in to spend the spring break doing "relief" work. Lawns and green median strips sprouted campaign posters for the upcoming primary. Houses displayed signs for the twenty-two would-be mayors and numerous City Council wannabes. At times, they overwhelmed the lush magnolias, honeysuckle, and azaleas flowering even as the city struggled for new life. That anyone would want to be mayor of a soon-to-be-bankrupt city should have been a sign of hope. But it was the other signs during this Passover week that reminded us why we were there. Each house searched by rescue crews carried an X with a circle around it. In the triangles were notations: the date of the search, the initials of the crew, and the number of casualties, if any. Most of the time there was a zero, but sometimes a number stood as a memorial.

Attitudes of New York City high school students regarding firearm violence.

To assess prevalence of gun possession, attitudes regarding gun possession and gun violence, knowledge and influences of gun violence, and the potential role of physicians in gun violence prevention education among adolescents. An anonymous questionnaire was distributed to 9th through 12th grade high school students at 3 public high schools in New York City. Three hundred forty-two surveys were distributed and returned. The prevalence of guns in the homes was 19.6%. Of respondents, 43.2% thought it was okay for anyone to have guns, and 57.3% had been injured or have had a relative injured by a gun. Although 11.6% of adolescents had felt the need to talk to an adult about guns, only 3.0% listed their physicians as one of these adults. However, if asked by their physician, 63.8% would discuss the issue with them. Only 5.7% of adolescents have had a physician speak to them about guns. The adolescent population surveyed is frequently exposed to gun violence. Although physicians rarely counsel adolescents regarding gun violence and firearm safety, many adolescents would be receptive to this mode of intervention.adolescence, attitude, firearm ownership, firearm violence, physician role.

Correlates of Psychosocial Adjustment in Adolescents From Divorced Families

The study was designed to identify the factors which predict psychological adjustment among 15 to 18-year-old adolescents whose parents have divorced. Psychosocial adjustment was assessed by the Youth Self Report (Achenbach, 1978, 1991). Predictors included the type of custody arrangement, the psychological adjustment of the custodial parent, factors affecting the adolescent's relationship with the non-custodial parent, demographic characteristics, stressful life events during the two years following the divorce, availability of social support, and family adaptability and cohesion. New York City high school students from divorced (n = 221) and intact (n = 215) families completed the survey instrument. Results indicated that the adjustment of adolescents from divorced families was related positively to the psychological adjustment of the custodial parent, the availability of social support, and family adaptability and cohesion. Adolescent adjustment was related negatively to the degree to which the parents displayed anger or physical abuse before and after the separation, and to the number of stressful life changes following the divorce. The factors predicting the adjustment of adolescents from intact families were similar.