An Assessment of Risk Behaviors among the Adolescent Students

World Health Organization defined ‘adolescence’ as age group of 10-19 years. Being the period of transition from childhood to adulthood, it is the time to build healthy behavior, attitude and lifestyle that contribute to current and future health.Serious health and safety issues such as motor vehicle crashes, violence, injuries from aggression and suicidal ideation often aggravated by alcohol and illicit drugs, increased susceptibility to chronic diseases from substance use, and risky sexual behaviors from sexual experimentation can adversely affect adolescent population.Given the nature and consequences of adolescent risk behaviors there is an imperative need to understand the entire array of these interrelated risk behaviors and promote activities to alter the circumstances that give rise to and sustain such cluster.A community based descriptive type of study, conducted in cross sectional design among 1109 school going adolescents belongs to class IX-XII in the district of Burdwan, West Bengal. The objectives of the study were: 1.To assess certain risk behaviors among the adolescent students 2.To compare whether the findings varied between age, sex and urban-rural differences.