State-Level Prevalence of Bullying Victimization Among Children and Adolescents, National Survey of Children’s Health, 2016-2017

Abstract

Bullying is a serious public health issue among children and adolescents in the United States. The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of bullying victimization (defined as a child being bullied, picked on, or excluded by children) in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. We used data on bullying victimization from the 2016-2017 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH). We stratified the sample by age: children aged 6-11 years (n = 21 142) and adolescents aged 12-17 years (n = 29 011). We conducted bivariate analyses to determine the prevalence of bullying victimization by state for each age group. In the survey, parents/caregivers responded to a question about whether it was “definitely true,” “somewhat true,” or “not true” that their child “is being bullied, picked on, or excluded by other children.” We combined “definitely true” and “somewhat true” responses to create a dichotomous variable for bullying victimization. Parents reported 22.4% of children aged 6-11 years and 21.0% of adolescents aged 12-17 years as experiencing bullying victimization during 2016-2017. The prevalence of bullying victimization among children ranged from 16.5% in New York State to 35.9% in Wyoming and among adolescents ranged from 14.9% in Nevada to 31.6% in Montana. The prevalence of bullying victimization among children or adolescents was >30% in 7 states: Arkansas, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. These data can be used to inform state programs and policies to support bullying prevention efforts and services for children and adolescents who experience bullying. NSCH will continue to collect data on bullying victimization to track annual trends in national and state-level prevalence rates among children and adolescents.