Factors that contribute to high rates of Disconnected Youth

Diego Jovel

Mentor: Dr. Tamar Mendelson

Department of Mental Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

Since around 2007 there has been a marked increase in the number of disconnected youth, youth that are neither employed or enrolled in the education system, in America, a problem that has also sparked a dramatic increase in money that must be diverted to cover the costs of keeping this population of uneducated and unemployed youth afloat. Our research aim is to identify certain factors and patterns that contribute to the high rates of disconnected youth, especially factors like race, age, and gender. The Measure of America dataset is being used to identify these patterns of youth disconnection and visualize the information. With this dataset we have seen that this problem of youth disconnection tends to affect communities with a greater demographic of Black residents, while communities of white residents are affected as well. This problem has led to multiple millions of dollars to be diverted from areas like public schools, public health, and the like. Ongoing analysis will include the relationship between other demographics and rates of disconnected youth.