CDC's 2023 teen tobacco use survey includes gender identity, sexual orientation
Districts in NC randomly selected to participate
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health, now run by former N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen, has included gender identity and sexual orientation questions in its 2023 National Tobacco Youth Survey.
The survey is distributed annually across the nation to measure the effectiveness of “comprehensive tobacco prevention and control programs” for youth, per the CDC’s website.
Questions posed to students taking the survey in 2020 included asking whether or not they identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or “something else,” and had a proposed transgender question for 2021. These questions are also present in the 2023 survey.
In the 2023 survey, students are now being asked if they identify as transgender or nonbinary:
The survey is supposed to be about student/youth tobacco use, yet the survey also attempts to inventory other aspects of a youth’s personal life and mental health-themed questions.
"During the past two weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?"
Little interest or pleasure in doing things
Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless
Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge
Not being able to stop or control worrying
Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, do you have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?
Yes
No
Question 139 asks, “After each statement in this question, tell us whether you have experienced each of the following types of discrimination because of your race or ethnicity. Remember, we are only interested in occasions when racial-ethnic discrimination was at least partly responsible for your experience. Have you experienced this?”
The response categories provided which include being “hassled by police,” being “wrongly disciplined,” and “people expected of you than others of your age,” are all arguably forms of discrimination as well as being themes found in the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline” narratives.
More To The Story
In North Carolina, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) puts out its own N.C. Youth Tobacco Survey (NC YTS)
The last NC YTS was conducted in 2022 and, like the CDC, asked about sexual orientation.
6. Which of the following best describes you?
A. Heterosexual (straight)
B. Gay or lesbian
C. Bisexual
D. I identify in some other way
E. Not sure
The same question was asked in 2019 of N.C. high schoolers but not middle schoolers.
According to the 2022 "fact sheet," the NC YTS has been administered “every two years” to students in grades 6-12 and a “random sample of schools” are selected to participate.
In response to questions about the distribution process for the survey, an NCDHHS communications department employee responded in an email with more details:
“The survey is administered at a randomly selected sample of 120 middle and 120 high schools across NC. The lists of randomly selected schools were provided by our partner, Research Triangle Institute (RTI), according to a sampling parameter that included all public middle and high schools as well as charter schools across NC.”
“The survey will be administered online at the selected schools. Each school has or will provide a complete list of second period classes from which DHHS selects a sample of classrooms to survey based on a random count. This typically will lead to surveying anywhere from 1-6 classrooms per school on a predetermined date (selected by school administration).”
The 2022 fact sheet also says 3,892 students did the 2022 survey; 2,043 middle schoolers and 1,849 high schoolers.
“Due to changes in survey methodology and low response rates, data from 2022 should not be compared to data from previous years, as data may not be comparable,” the fact sheet states, while citing a 36.1% rate for middle school and 35.9% rate for high school.
NCDHHS was also asked about parental notification and opting out.
The long and short of it, yes, parents have to have been given 10 days advance notification and students are opted out unless parents give “prior written or electronic consent” for their child to do the survey.
Here are the long-form answers to the questions.
Are parents allowed to opt their child out?
As a result of North Carolina Session Law 2023-106, students are prohibited from participating in a protected information survey such as NC YTS without the prior written or electronic consent of the parent or the adult student being provided to the school through a process determined by the school. Since the law opts all students out of participation in surveys like NC YTS by default, parents who do not wish their children to participate in the survey are not required to take any action under the law to opt their child(ren) out of participation.
Are parents notified about this survey?
North Carolina Session Law 2023-106 requires schools to inform parents at least 10 days prior to survey administration and provide (1) the process for providing consent to for their child(ren) to participate in the protected information survey and (2) the full text of the protected information survey.