Learning about teens' health!

The 10,000 Families Study (10KFS) of the University of Minnesota is a study of family health in the state of Minnesota, USA. Participant families can include members of their family --a minimum of two. We do not request a blood relationship to allow families to include step and adoptive children, spouses, partners, etc.

After the first family member becomes eligible (A person who is 18 years old and lives in Minnesota), other family members who live in Minnesota or any neighboring states --Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin-- can participate as well.

The ideal makeup of this study should be a true match with the demographic composition of Minnesota, which includes all communities, US and foreign born, urban and rural, with different educational backgrounds, economic levels, abilities, from all races and ethnic origins. 

At the 10,000 Families Study, we are trying to adapt and ensure that we get the best data possible to help us understand how health is shared in families. We want to share our most recent update with you. We have just designed and are getting ready to release a questionnaire designed only for adolescent participants in the study (ages 12-17 years). We are preparing to launch this new questionnaire, also known as the Teen Survey, in the coming months.

Even though in our questionnaire for parents we ask for information about their child’s health, it is also important for us to obtain information directly from young people -- 12 years or older. Adolescence is such an important time in our lives. Growth and new development happens continuously at this age. Also this is the time when people start to make more independent decisions that impact their current and future health.

There are other well-established and validated projects that collect health and behavior data

from adolescents in Minnesota on a regular basis. Some of these projects are the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) and the Minnesota Student Survey (MSS). 

• The YRBSS is a national survey conducted by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and monitors six categories of health-related behaviors. 
• The MSS is a statewide survey conducted by the Minnesota Department of Education to monitor the health and well-being of students in Minnesota. 

When we designed our questionnaire for 10KFS, we used these projects as the source of the content for our questionnaire. This will ensure that we are capturing information using tools that have been designed to successfully capture what teens are being exposed to and will also permit us to compare results from the 10KFS study with other research projects. We also worked to ensure that we are thinking outside the box and asking questions that get at choices and experiences that are becoming more common and are more inclusive of teens  from all racial and ethnic groups, especially those from immigrant and refugee communities in Minnesota, as well as LGBTQ+ teens.

Adolescents are typically healthy, but some health and social issues emerge during this time period, including experimentation with tobacco, alcohol and other drugs, nutrition and body image concerns, sexual health behaviors, and mental health issues. In the 10KFS teen survey, we include content designed to capture a variety of these issues. We also include questions related to topics that are new or have not received enough attention in the past. Vaping and skin lightening products are two of these topics and are described in more detail below.

Vaping is a new health concern with significant relevance in the adolescent population. Products available for vaping are appealing to young people due to their choice of flavoring and packaging. While vaping products don’t contain the same harmful carcinogens as typical tobacco products, they do still contain the highly addictive substance, nicotine. Since these are a relatively recent addition to the market, the long term health effects of vaping are not completely understood and need to be studied at the population level. There is also a concern that vaping will lead to use of more traditional tobacco products in the future. By including questions on vaping in the adolescent questionnaire, 10KFS will be able to contribute to this important area of research.

The use of skin lightening products is also an area of concern for the health of teens of color in Minnesota. Use is common--or at least happens--among some immigrant and refugee communities in Minnesota, including Somali and other East African, Hmong and other Southeast Asian, and Latino, due to dominant ideals of beauty. Teens may be influenced by societal expectations and by peers and older adults in their lives. Though it is illegal to sell skin lightening products that contain mercury in the US due to its health risks, they can still be ordered online, carried from other countries, or found in some community markets.  Most of the time consumers are not aware what it is in the beauty products they are using. We want to find out if use of these products is common in  teens in Minnesota. 

Gender identity and sexual orientation and behavior are also important for understanding health in young people. From innovative leaders in adolescent health, we adopted new ways to ask some of these questions that have not been used in most teen surveys but are more inclusive of teens across the full spectrum of gender identity and sexual orientation. We hope these questions will enable us to get more accurate and complete information from more teens .

In the coming months, we will be sending the Teen Survey out to all 10KFS participants ages 12 to 17. 

This is the way we will do it:

1. We will send an email notifying the parents that their child is eligible to complete the survey, and asking the parent to forward the message to their child rather than asking for the child’s email address. 
2. Once the teen has indicated their willingness to complete the online survey, the teen will receive a separate link to the health questionnaire that will be accessible only by the teen, not by the parent.  This will preserve the young person’s privacy.

We are very excited about this new opportunity to gather family information and give teens an opportunity to share about important issues that relate to their health.  We will send a small eGift card to all respondents after they complete the survey.

If your family is already participating in 10KFS and you have a 12-17-year-old, please keep an eye out in your inbox for this important new tool in the 10KFS study!

If you haven’t yet joined 10KFS, your family can be part of the study, too, and your teens will be able to share their experiences.  Click here to take our eligibility survey!

To send feedback and/or request information, please fill out our form at Connect with us!