Can you help boost survey participation at a local authority level to get information about young people's health and lifestyles?

The What About YOUth? survey, funded by the Department of Health, is an important piece of research collecting information on young people’s health and lifestyles including their health, diet, bullying, smoking, taking drugs and drinking alcohol. The survey has been sent to around 300,000 fifteen year olds across England who were randomly selected to take part.

A key feature of What About YOUth? is that the large sample size has been designed to produce outputs that are reliable and robust at a local authority level. This will enable comparisons with similar authorities and the national position in 2015. The intention is that the survey will be repeated at a later stage to look at changes over time, which will help authorities monitor their progress.

The survey What About YOUth? was launched towards the end of September 2014. Questionnaires have been mailed out and are currently being completed and returned, and fieldwork will continue until the end of December 2014. The aim is to publish the smoking indicator for the public health outcomes framework by local authority in August 2015 with a main report in late 2015 including data at local authority level.

The current response varies by local authority, and it is important to achieve a good response from young people selected to take part across all local authority areas. You may be able to help by encouraging young people in your area who have received the survey to fill out the questionnaire and send it back to us. Please contact Ipsos MORI at whataboutyouth@ipsos.com for more information if you are able to help encourage the selected young people to take part.