![\"A](\"https:\/\/vtdigger.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/memorial-day-4-20240527-1200x798.jpg\")
The Middlebury Union High School marching band prepares to march in the Memorial Day parade in Vergennes in May 2024. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\nThe Middlebury Union High School marching band prepares to march in the Memorial Day parade in Vergennes in May 2024. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n
After years of nationwide concerns<\/a> about teen mental health, the latest data from Vermont\u2019s largest survey of its kind suggests that the situation for the state\u2019s youth might finally be improving.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Vermont Department of Health released a report<\/a> on Aug. 18 showing that fewer teens say they feel depressed or anxious, and a smaller percentage of\u00a0 teens are vaping, drinking or using cannabis. Experts said that may be partly the result of a slow recovery from the mental health struggles of the Covid-19 pandemic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI do think some of this is, \u2018Hey, our country went through this horrible event of a pandemic,\u2019 and it affected all of us, including our youth and teens,\u201d said Vermont Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Rick Hildebrant. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a bit of a return to less of that poor mental health that we were seeing around the country and around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The data comes from the 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey<\/a>, sent to high school and middle school students around the state every two years since 1995. More than 15,000 students completed surveys last year.<\/p>\n Despite progress, Hildebrant noted that mental health issues in teens were still \u201cway too high.\u201d One in four high school students reported poor mental health, down from one in three in 2023.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s the collective desire of every parent to have children who are able to live their best life,\u201d Hildebrant said. \u201cAnd when you are struggling from depression and mental health disorders? That\u2019s a concern, and to have the number be as high as it is, (is) alarming and concerning to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Also concerning are the disparities reported for girls, LGBTQ+ teens, and high school students with educational disabilities. Female high school students were more than twice as likely as male students to report poor mental health. LGBTQ+ students were far more likely than their peers to feel sad or anxious, to self-harm or make a suicide plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hildebrant said those groups were also less likely to say that they feel like they mattered in their community, and more likely to drop out of activities due to poor mental health.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis feeling of connectedness \u2014\u00a0 there\u2019s more and more research showing how important that is to your self-esteem and to your mental health,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dana Kaplan is the executive director of Outright Vermont, an organization that supports LGBTQ+ youth. He said it was important to highlight that queer teens\u2019 poor mental health \u201cis not based on anything being wrong with a young person\u2019s identity,\u201d but says more about \u201cthe level of bullying, harassment, rejection (and) isolation\u201d they\u2019re navigating.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vermont has great policies to protect LGBTQ+ people, \u201cbut there is a real gap between the actual lived experience of young folks and what those policies say on the books,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s things that happen on a daily basis, of being misgendered, or not being referred to by your right name,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201c(We get) phone calls from young folks saying, \u2018Am I allowed to go to school and be who I am?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhack-a-mole\u201d<\/p>\n Another highlight from the survey is that e-cigarette use among Vermont\u2019s teenagers has dropped precipitously from pre-pandemic levels. About 14% of high school students reported using a vape or electronic cigarette in the past 30 days, down from 26% in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n In total, 18% of students said they\u2019ve used any form of tobacco, including vapes, cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco pouches, according to the survey.\u00a0<\/p>\n Elias Klemperer, a researcher at the University of Vermont who studies tobacco use, said the drop among Vermont\u2019s teens was a \u201cvery good sign\u201d that parallels a national fall in e-cigarette use. \u201cAnytime we can keep kids from using nicotine products, that is a good thing,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hildebrant praised youth-led anti-tobacco initiatives like Unhyped<\/a> for spreading awareness of the harms of vaping. \u201cIt\u2019s peer pressure in the positive direction,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not entirely clear whether the drop signifies a shift away from tobacco products entirely, or just a shift to other tobacco products. Cigarette use remained low \u2014 just 6% of high school students \u2014 but early reports have shown a rise in smokeless tobacco pouches<\/a> from brands like Zyns.<\/p>\n Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, a lobbyist and spokesperson for the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont, said it can feel like a \u201cgame of whack-a-mole\u201d trying to keep up with new products. Along with pouches, she noted that e-cigarettes are coming on the market<\/a> that look like toys or phones.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis industry is highly, highly skilled at communications, highly skilled at marketing,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd kids know when things are made for them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Middlebury Union High School marching band prepares to march in the Memorial Day parade in Vergennes in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[351490,97,3026,259,260,31550],"class_list":["post-829805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-covid-19-vermont","tag-health","tag-lgbtq","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-vermont-department-of-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/vtdigger.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/transgender-day-9-20230331-1200x799.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
Several hundred queer and transgender kids and their supporters gather at the Statehouse in Montpelier to celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility in March 2023. File photo by Glenn Russell\/VTDigger<\/p>\n