About the Study

About The Study

RISE- Pilot

In 2010, UCLA conducted a pilot study called RISE (Reducing Health Inequalities through Social and Educational Change). UCLA collaborated with three Greendot Animo High Schools throughout Los Angeles to survey a total of approximately 1,000 students ranging from the 9th to the 12th grade. The purpose of the study was to determine whether school environment affects student’s risky health behaviors such as smoking, drinking, sex and violence.

RISE UP-HS

In 2012, UCLA received new funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct a follow-up study (RISE-UP) which would follow incoming high school students for four years. This natural experiment used admission lotteries, which mimic random assignment, to estimate the association of school environments and adolescent health. A survey of 1270 students who applied to at least 1 of 5 high-performing public charter schools in low-income minority communities in Los Angeles, California. These 5 charter schools were Stern Mass, Animo Inglewood, Animo Leadership, Environmental Charter, and Animo Oscar de la Hoya. Schools had an academic performance ranked in the top tertile of Los Angeles County public high schools, applicants outnumbered available seats by at least 50, and an admissions lottery was used. Participants included lottery winners (intervention group [n = 694]) and lottery losers (control group [n = 576]) from the end of 8th grade and beginning of 9th grade through the end of 11th grade. Intention-to-treat (ITT) and instrumental variable techniques estimated the association of winning the lottery and attending high-performing schools with health behaviors and whether the association varied by sex.

Participants completed 4 surveys: Baseline, which was taken at the end of 8th grade or beginning of 9th, and 3 follow up surveys after that which were collected towards the end of each remaining grade. Data were collected from March 11, 2013, through February 22, 2017, and analyzed from October 1, 2017, through July 1, 2018.

RISE UP-T2A

In 2018, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) once again funded UCLA with an R01 grant to conduct a follow up study. The UCLA RISE UP-T2A study (Reducing Inequities in health through Social and Educational Change-Transition to Adulthood study) is a follow up of a collaborative effort (RISE UP High School Study: RISE UP-HS) between UCLA, Green Dot and Alliance College-Ready Schools which examined the impact of educational attainment on health behaviors among high school age adolescents in Los Angeles. RISE UP-T2A is a prospective, longitudinal follow up of the RISE UP-HS cohort through age 21, with additional surveys at age 19, 20 and 21.

The study is a longitudinal quasi-experimental study examining social networks and drug use among low-income participants who applied to high performing charter high schools in Los Angeles, comparing the accepted (Experimental) with those who are not accepted (Control) through the random lottery process. Data will be collected from April 2018, through March 2023.