Welcome, everybody, to Midday magazine for this Wednesday, January 15th, 2025.
Have your host, James Jamel, off here, welcoming onto the studio, I should say, on the
fold in the studio, into the studio.
Wood County Youth Risk Behavior Survey, as what we're going to be talking about with our
friend, Nikki Luckt.
She is the epimologist with Wood County Health Department.
Did I get any of that right, Nikki?
Epidemiologist.
Epidemiologist, thank you.
This is pre-recorded.
I could fix that in post.
We're not going to.
We're not going to.
We're human beings around here, and we're going to have, especially because I want to dive
right into this topic with you.
First, happy new year to you and yours in the whole Wood County Health Department.
Big thank you to all of you and your staff over there, Nikki.
Let's dive right into this survey, this Youth Risk Behavior Survey that was recently
out.
Where would you like to start with this?
Let's start just giving a little bit of background about what it even is.
So, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey or IRVS, as we call it, for short, is a survey that
is done by middle and high school students every two years.
So, we'll start from the Department of Public Instruction, partners with the CDC, and
it's done nationally and statewide, so schools have the choice to act in to do it, so not
every single school does it, but we have really good participation here in Wood County.
This year, actually, well, 2023 was the most recent year that it was conducted, and we
had a little over 2600 responses for high school students, which is about 74% of public
high school students in Wood County, so a good representative example we had here.
And the survey, it asked things like about safety, violence, mental health, drug use,
sexual behavior, nutrition, and a bunch more.
It covered a lot of topics.
So, the Department of Public Instruction calculates all of the data for us and then sends that
report out.
So, once they have that all completed, we try to take that report, which is like 200 pages,
so huge, and we try to, you know, tear that down, put it into a more of a summary report.
That's more easily digestible, looks nicer, and it's just more useful for our schools,
our partners, and community, really.
And Nikki, what is some of the bigger headlines coming out of this survey?
Yeah, so this year, so we have been doing the survey for many years now, and the questions
changed a little bit in 2019, so we can compare now since 2019, so there's three different
survey cycles since then, so 2019, 2021, and 2023, so the report we created, it has trends
in there from the last, you know, six years, and we can compare Wood County to the state
of Johnson or Ross, see how we're doing compared to the state, and then also look at those
last three surveys that go and see how we've been doing, how we've been getting better,
how we've been getting worse, where should we focus?
So, some of the trends, when we look at the last few years, one positive is that compared
to recent years, in 2023, our alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use have mostly decreased,
so that's great.
But then some of the other trends that we're seeing that aren't so great, when you look
at mental health, anxiety, depression, and suicide rates have all increased since 2019,
the percentage of students who have ever been raped has been increasing, violence is a
big one, so there were 105% increase in students who agreed that violence is a problem
at school from 2021 to 2023, and then another big one, the percentage of students who spent
three or more days, sorry, three more hours per day on their phone, Xbox, or other device
that wasn't for school use has increased a ton since 2019, so spending a lot more time
on devices, so those are the big trends.
And Nikki, one thing I think is important to keep in mind with this, one that we need
all hands on deck for this, if you're listening out there and you don't have kids or maybe your
kids are out of school or there are adults now or something like that, this still involves
you.
It's going to take all of us to help with these situations and help with these things
and improve these numbers, hopefully, for next year's survey.
But when a lot of these things can feel daunting and feel like there's a lot going on and
there's so much here, you actually noted something that I thought was really important when
you started this with the decrease in tobacco and nicotine and alcohol that we've seen
a decrease in that.
When we were kids, if somebody told me there's going to be a day where you can walk into
a gas station and there's only like two brands of cigarettes, I'd laugh at you.
There's no way I would believe that.
The where this country has gone, where society has gone with nicotine and how we have kind
of taken that out of a lot of stores, out of a lot of things, there's, I don't even
believe that there's method of menthol, this is the word I was looking for, yes, menthol
cigarettes now.
So I think that we have proven and we've seen that, hey, this stuff can change.
We can make an improvement on these things.
And so I think we need to keep that in mind where some of this stuff may seem so daunting
right now, five, 10 years, if we put the work in, it can get better.
We can improve society and make things better.
There's another part of this too, where it feels like for those of us that have always
known about mental health and paid attention to it, like we're just welcoming everybody
to the party.
Thanks a lot for caring now, but as a society, we really care about this now.
It's something we talk quite a bit about.
But now that we've gotten that in, now the real work comes in, where we have to do the
hard work on mental health and what that means for ourselves as well as for our others.
And that part is very noteworthy to me.
All of these things are very noteworthy to me.
That one stands out to me because whether it is violence or sexual abuse or any of these
things, they all lead to mental health.
It all ties together.
Yeah, they're all interconnected.
When you see these things, I imagine that anybody with a heart is going to care a little
bit.
But I also would imagine that we're okay, now that we have this data, how do we make things
better?
Yeah, so this report, this 2023 one that we came out with, we worked with our school partners,
we met with them, we asked them, okay, here's our 2021 report, what could be better?
What would be more useful this time around?
And we heard that they really wanted to know now what, what can we do?
Like here's all this data, which is great, it's helpful to have, but now what?
What do we do?
Like we see that there's some gaps here or maybe we're having some issues here, so what
can be done?
So this report is the first time that we have included a section on recommendations.
So that section, it provides a whole list of different recommendations to address some
of the issues that we saw from the data that Wood County students are struggling with,
and to try to help improve some of those different health and safety issues that schools are
seeing.
And those are things that can be implemented in schools, maybe they can be implemented
in the home in the community, so there's a whole range of things that can be done.
You know, you mentioned, this is really for all hands on taxes for everyone.
I mean, our youth are our future, so it's not just a school thing, it's a whole community.
We all need to come together.
There's a bunch of different interventions that can be implemented, and everyone has
a part in it.
Let's kind of go through some of the other details of this too.
The DPI included an examination of dispensaries by breaking down the YRBS data by following
a subpopulations.
Can we get into a little of that?
Yeah, so the DPI, they birthed down the data by looking at different subpopulations, so
they look at disparities among students.
So rather than only looking at all Wood County students overall, they break it down by looking
at male versus female, the grade level, the race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and
gender identity, the average grades earned, so if you mostly get A's, B's, so on, whether
or not you have a chronic or physical health condition, special education services, and
whether or not students is food insecure.
So hasn't had enough food in the last 30 days is how they describe that.
So when we take a closer look at those breakdowns, we can see where we can tailor and focus
our interventions.
So a good example is food insecurity among Wood County students overall is about 21%, so
about 21% or 1 in 5 Wood County students are experiencing food insecurity, and that's
lower than the state average, which is great, and we don't want anyone facing food insecurity.
But if you only look at that number of all students who think, okay, we're doing that
in the state, so not too bad.
But when you look at it broken down among students that are having a disability or chronic
health condition and students to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, so LGBT,
they have significantly higher rates of food insecurity compared to their peers.
So we can look at that and think, okay, what's happening among those students in particular?
Where could we focus within those specific groups to improve that so that they can,
their numbers are closer to that of all students, rather than having more challenges?
And we are speaking with Nikki Locked from the Wood County Health Department, and Nikki,
when it comes to that, and not that I think there's a way to much put on your guys' shoulders
at the health department, so I don't mean to put this on there, but are there things
you guys or other organizations are doing to help with this?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, schools are already doing a ton, you know, some of the recommendations we have in
there are actually from different schools, like we see certain schools having a specific
program or something that's worked really well, and we put that in there, so maybe another
school can try to implement that.
So we have our schools, there's plenty of different organizations, the community that are
doing things, so it's definitely not just the health department.
You know, the health department is just one of the many organizations involved in the
larger umbrella that we call Healthy People Wood County.
So it really takes all of us coming together.
One of the things we are doing, I've been on here before and talked about our community
health assessments and the survey that was done, and super exciting, we're going to
hear it here first, actually, our community health improvements plan has finally been
published.
There will be a press release going on about that tomorrow, and so that is really a road
map for improving the health priorities that were identified in that community health
assessment.
We've shared that in June or July, and that's really, it's an action plan for addressing
health issues that have been identified for the next three years, and one of the things
in there is actually specifically focused on food insecurity among our students, so that's
just one of the many, many things in that community health improvement plan.
First off, Nikki, thank you, we love breaking news, thank you for that, we appreciate it.
But more importantly, that's just great to hear, I could feel it in my soul that felt
good, that's really good to hear, and especially about a subject like that, that nobody deserves
to be in that situation with food insecurity, so that's really good to hear, Nikki, thank
you for sharing that.
Yeah, absolutely, we're really excited about it.
There's a couple new priorities this time around, so the plan addresses multiple health
priorities that came out of that assessment, ones that we have worked on prior include
substance use, mental health, housing, transportation, and some newer ones access to care, which includes
mental care, which we heard loud and clear, I remember talking to you about that last time,
and financial security is another new one, and these are all so interconnected, financial
security can affect your mental health, mental health can impact your financial security,
and I mean, there's just so many different ways that they're interconnected, but those
are the top priorities that this plan addresses, and this is really meant to be a community
plan, so not just the health department, not just the spirit, not just Marshfield, it's all
of us coming together to have a bigger impact, so we really, anyone that's interested,
we really want people, anyone who lives or works in Wood County, we'd love for you to
join our efforts to help improve these health priorities, there's so many different ways
we can get involved, if you want to find more about that community health improvement plan
or ways to get involved, you can go to our website, which is healthypeoplewoodcounty.org.
You can also request printed copies of that community health improvement plan by calling
health department, our number is 715-421-8911, same thing if you'd like copies of that
youth risk behavior summary, you can go on our website, or you can call the health department
if you'd like a printed copy, we are happy to have people get involved in any way.
And Nikki, as long as we are talking about this great program, this great organization,
we've touched on it before, you've mentioned a number of things about it, is there anything
else people should know?
I do think it's a good point again, we invite all people who live and work in Wood County
to be a part of this program.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think just a few other things, if you, you know, maybe before you get involved, if you
deciding if you'd want to get involved, you can find tons of information on our website,
so again, that's Healthy People Wood County.org.
We have all of the different works that we do on there, there's a section get involved,
you can learn more about ways to get involved, we have a data and report sections, the best
where you'll find a youth risk behavior survey, the community health improvement plan, and
all of the other data and reports that we have created or shared over the years.
So our website's really a wealth of information, so if you want to check that out, and then,
you know, there's something that you're really interested in, please reach out.
We also have social media pages, we have a Facebook and Instagram, so just look up Healthy
People Wood County, give us a follow, we share stuff daily on there, so lots of information
if you are interested.
And Nikki, did you have any other notes on the survey?
I think we covered everything.
Yeah, let me see.
I think for the most part, we covered everything, just that maybe another thing to note, so it
is this year, 2025, is a new survey year, so it's on the odd year, so students will be
taking the survey again this year.
It takes a bit for that data to be analyzed, so we're hoping it'll be a little bit faster
this time that we get the data from DPI, but we don't have a whole lot of control over
that.
So I'm hoping that our next report will come out a little bit quicker so that it's more
real time.
So you know, they're taking the survey in the spring of 2025, hopefully I'll be able
to share those results with you sooner than two years later next time.
Yeah, understandable how these things work, but that would be really cool, that'd be great
if we were able to.
We certainly, as long as we are talking about Wood County Health Department, I want to remind
everybody to get up to date on all those shots and keep up to date on your health, especially
this time of year, we know how it is, we're talking to fellow Midwesterners out there.
Keep up to date on those things, everybody.
Yes, absolutely.
And one more thing to note about that survey, if you want to see more data, so our report
only includes information under the top of areas of mental health, substance use, violence,
and health behaviors and outcomes, but there's a lot more information in that school report
and you can find those full data tables on DPI's website.
So if you are interested in want to see more, it's all there.
Nikki, I cannot thank you enough for the time.
Please say a happy new year to you and the staff over there.
We appreciate all of you.
If people have follow up questions, want to know more, maybe about the survey to see that,
or they would like to be a part of or learn more about healthy people, Wood County.
How can they find out about those again?
I think we're up site, healthypeoplewoodcounty.org, and reach out if you want to call the Health
Department's number is at 1-5-421-8911, we will be happy to hear from you and thank you
so much, James, happy new year to you as well.
Thanks, Nikki.
Appreciate the time.
And again, if you want to find out more information as well, you can go to their website
woodcountywi.gov, woodcountywi.gov.
Nikki, we'll talk soon.
You take care.
YouTube.
Coming up for the rest of the week here at Midday Magazine, tomorrow in part one, we'll
visit Rome with Jillian.
And in part two, UW-Madison extensions and a Michele going to join us looking forward
to those conversations.
We wrap up the week on Friday with Wisconsin State Senator Patrick Teston.
Always a good, open, clean, you know, transparent conversation with the Senator looking forward
to that.
And we wrap up the week in part two on Friday with the Port Edwards Line Club, talking
about their fishery.
Always look forward to that.
Every year, they join us.
We're looking forward to it.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
Keep in mind here at the studios.
We have the new guides for the visit Wisconsin Rapids Bureau.
Come pick one of those up.
We've also got plenty of other things here.
We love to hear from all of you.
When it comes to our guests, we always encourage you to get us your questions for these guests,
whether any individual guest.
Please feel free to reach out to us, get us those questions.
You can email me directly, james.mailoff at civicmedia.us, james.mailoff at civicmedia.us,
encourage you to do that.
Otherwise, you can email us info at wfhr.com.
Either way should work.
We look forward to hearing from you and getting your questions out there.
And as always, I want to say a big thank you to Pam Hilke, the heart of this station,
and the main scheduler here at Midday Magazine.
Appreciate the work, Pam.
And appreciate all of you listening.
Remember that you can get the, if you missed an interview or missed parts of the interview,
you can get the whole interview, get the podcast and share it on your social media at civicmedia.us.
Last shows, just go to civicmedia.us and you'll find our shows and you can find it, download
it, and share it all you like.
And we'll have more Midday Magazine coming up for you right here at 97-5 FM, 13-20 AM,
WFHR.
We are locally grown radio.
