By Dr Joanne Williams PhD
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Adolescent Health.

The Centre for Adolescent Health was commissioned to utilize data collected in the Healthy Neighbourhoods Project (HN) to write a report for the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) looking at alcohol and youth violence.  The HN study was originally funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council and conducted by the Centre for Adolescent Health in 2006.  It was a large cross-sectional school-based study looking at the health and wellbeing of children and teenagers across Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. Communities were stratified according to socioeconomic status and urban/rural location and randomly selected to take part in the project. More than 8000 young people in years 6 and 8 were surveyed from 15 urban and 15 rural areas.

The survey consisted of a computer-based questionnaire. The height, weight, blood pressure and pulse rate of participants was also measured. The questionnaire was designed to provide information on rates of health and social problems experienced by young people, together with information on the risk and protective factors that may predict these problems.

Find the full report