Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance-United States, 2017
The sampling frame for the 2017 national YRBS consisted of all regular public (including charter schools), Catholic, and other non-public schools with students in at least one of grades 9–12 in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Alternative schools, special education schools, schools operated by the Department of Defense, Bureau of Indian Education schools, and vocational schools serving only pull-out populations were excluded. The sampling frame combined data sets obtained from Market Data Retrieval, Inc. (MDR) (16) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (17).
The NCES data sets were based on the Common Core of Data for public schools and the Private School Survey for nonpublic schools. Very small schools with an enrollment of ≤40 across grades 9–12 were excluded. A three-stage cluster sample design was used to produce a nationally representative sample of students in grades 9–12 who attend public and private schools. The first-stage sampling frame consisted of 1,257 primary sampling units (PSUs), consisting of counties; groups of smaller, adjacent counties; or parts of larger counties. The 1,257 PSUs were categorized into 16 strata according to their metropolitan statistical area (MSA) status (e.g., urban city) and the percentages of black and Hispanic students in the PSUs. From the 1,257 PSUs, 54 were sampled with probability proportional to overall school enrollment size for the PSU.
For the second stage of sampling, secondary sampling units (SSUs) were defined as a physical school with grades 9–12 or a school created by combining nearby schools to provide all four grades. From the 54 PSUs, 162 SSUs were sampled with probability proportional to school enrollment size. These 162 SSUs corresponded to 192 physical schools.
The third stage of sampling consisted of random sampling in each of grades 9–12, one or two classrooms from either a required subject (e.g., English or social studies) or a required period (e.g., homeroom or second period). All students in sampled classes were eligible to participate. Schools, classes, and students that refused to participate were not replaced.