Priority health risk behaviors (i.e. preventable behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality) are often established during childhood and adolescence and extend into adulthood. Ongoing surveillance of youth risk behaviors is critical for the design, implementation, and evaluation of public health interventions to improve adolescent health. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) is a national surveillance system that was established in 1991 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors among youth. The Nevada High School YRBS is a biennial, anonymous, and voluntary survey of students in 9th through 12th grade in regular public, charter, and alternative schools. Students self-report their behaviors in six major areas of health that directly lead to morbidity and mortality; these include: 1) Behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence; 2) Sexual behaviors that contribute to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unintended pregnancy; 3) Tobacco use; 4) Alcohol and other drug use; 5) Unhealthy dietary behaviors; and 6) Physical inactivity.

In 2025, 34 high schools were randomly chosen by the CDC to represent Nevada. To ensure greater representation from schools in all districts, the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health contracted with the University of Nevada, Reno School of Public Health to conduct the YRBS in all high schools throughout the state. The 2025 Nevada High School YRBS provides statewide data to assess priority health-risk behaviors among high school students, measures progress toward achieving national health objectives for Healthy People 2030 and other program and policy indicators, and evaluates the impact of school and community interventions at the national, state, and local level. It is our intention that these data will be used by education and health professionals, policy makers, community members, and researchers to improve the health of Nevada’s high school students.