What Students Say About Their Own Behavior, Feelings

California Healthy Kids Survey Results Now Available on Kidsdata.org

March 23, 2009

Beginning this month, data from the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), a survey of the California Department of Education, will be available on kidsdata.org.

The CHKS provides a comprehensive, data-rich resource that measures the health and well being of California's students, providing benchmarks about nutrition, exercise, student feelings of school connectedness and use of alcohol and other drugs.

The inaugural set of CHKS data posted on kidsdata.org (www.kidsdata.org/chks) is a product of a new partnership between the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, which operates kidsdata.org, and WestEd, which developed and administers the CHKS survey for the California Department of Education.

Kidsdata.org will provide a fast and easy way for journalists, parents, educators and the general public to find and compare students' responses about their attitudes and behaviors on a range of topics in six Bay Area counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara), along with statewide comparisons.

CHKS data, organized by county and school districts, currently are available on www.wested.org/chks. Visitors to kidsdata.org now will be able to sort the responses by age, gender and ethnicity; compare data across multiple regions; and view results as maps, tables and bar graphs, providing the public with another useful, accessible and easy-to-understand vehicle for viewing these data.

WestEd is a research and consulting organization that works with educators and communities to enhance education and human development.

Kidsdata.org, a program of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, is a wide-ranging, online clearinghouse of information about the health and well being of children in California and the Bay Area.

For more information, contact Andy Krackov, assistant vice president for Programs & Partnerships at the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, at (650) 736-0677 or andy.krackov@lpfch.org, or Sean Slade, CHKS regional manager at WestEd, at (510) 302-4202 or sslade@wested.org. CHKS Regional Centers can be contacted toll free at (888) 841-7536.

To sign up for monthly updates about news, events and data regarding Bay Area children, visit www.lpfch.org/signup/index.html.

To sign up for regular CHKS updates about survey developments, adolescent health and well being, visit www.wested.org/chks/listserv.