Strategies for Successfully Conducting Research Among Youth and Young Adults
Collecting high‑quality information from youth and young adults is essential for the development, implementation, and evaluation of prevention programs, communications campaigns, and policy initiatives focused on youth health and wellbeing. However, recruiting schools and students to participate in research has become increasingly challenging, contributing to declining response rates and data quality concerns across many jurisdictions.
In this session, you’ll explore practical strategies and best practices for successfully recruiting and collecting data from youth and young adults using large‑scale health surveys such as the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). You’ll also examine state and community-based alternatives, including lessons learned from implementation of the Oregon Youth Survey Online, a comprehensive, online survey used to assess youth health behaviors and protective factors among high school students.
Drawing on real‑world examples, Madden will highlight approaches to youth engagement, consent and recruitment strategies, questionnaire design considerations, and methods for maintaining data quality. You’ll gain actionable insights that can be applied to their own quantitative and qualitative research efforts with youth and young adults.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Describe the role of youth and young adult data in informing prevention planning, program evaluation, and policy development at the local, state, and national levels.
- Analyze common challenges in collecting data from youth and young adults, including school recruitment barriers, consent processes, response rates, and data quality limitations.
- Identify evidence-informed strategies for designing surveys and implementing data collection processes that improve participation and data quality among youth populations.