Health Behaviors and Protective Factors of School Students Aged 13-15 Years Old in Four Cities of China

This paper presents baseline data on health behaviors and protective factors among junior middle school students aged 13-15 years old in China for the purpose of developing priorities, establishing programs and policies for school health and youth health and also establishing trends in the prevalence of these behaviors. The 2003 CHINA GSHS employed a two-stage cluster sample design to produce a representative sample of junior middle school students in Grades 1-4 in Beijing, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Urumchi. A World Health Organization (WHO) developed survey was used to collect the data among 7,393 students. Results showed that 14.6% of students drank at least one alcohol drink on one or more of the past 30 days, 7.1% were at risk of becoming overweight, 25.9% did not have habit of washing hands before eating, 17.8% seriously considered attempting suicide during the past 12 months, and only 12.2% of students were physically active 7 days during a typical week for a total of at least 60 minutes per day. Additionally, 6% of students missed classes or school without permission on one or more of the past 30 days, 48.1% of students had been taught about HIV or AIDS during the school year, 6.2% of students smoked cigarettes during the past 30 days, 18.4% of students were involved in a physical fight and 20.6% were seriously injured during the past 12 months. Finally, 93% of students were taught how to prevent Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) during the past school year. Results also indicated there were many different problems on health behaviors and protective factors of school students among four cities. This was the first Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) conducted in China and it is expected the results will be helpful in providing data for program development and making policies concerning school health and health education. Additionally, the data will be helpful for international comparisons between countries. (Contains 11 tables.)