In the proposed study we explicitly recognize the importance of two types of social context (geographic and school context) for the health behavior decisions made by adolescents. Our guiding premise is that the characteristics of where adolescents live and go to school influence not only their behavioral alternatives, but also their associated social, economic and psychic costs. That is, we view these characteristics as both defining an opportunity structure that channels and constrains adolescent health behaviors and engendering social norms that delimit the boundaries of desirable or acceptable behaviors. In the proposed study, then, we will examine these contextual effects on the following five types of health behaviors: 1) sexual, contraceptive, and fertility behaviors; 2) alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use; 3) behaviors associated with physical injury; 4) exercise; and, 5) diet and eating disorders. Our first task during the proposed study is to construct a contextual database. This database will contain a complete set of aggregate measures for the places in which the adolescents included in the study spend the vast majority of their time: their schools, and their neighborhoods and communities. These aggregate measures will represent virtually all of the characteristics of these contexts that may be hypothesized to affect the health behaviors of adolescents. It will be a database that is necessary not only for our proposed analyses, but also for all of the other components of the larger study since those analyses explicitly recognize that school and geographic context constrain many of the individual- and group-processes being investigated. Our second task during the proposed study is to link the contextual database to the individual-level data collected under the core application and assess the separate and combined effects of school context and geographic context on each of the health behaviors. We will examine not only the """"""""total"""""""" effects of the characteristics of both school context and geographic context, but also determine at which level of aggregation specific characteristics have the greatest impact on the health behaviors considered. Further, we will investigate whether individuals with specific attributes are more or less vulnerable to the effects of context, and examine the individual-level mechanisms (knowledge and attitudes) through which context affects decisions about engaging in health behaviors. Thus, in successfully completing the proposed study, we will provide the first comprehensive analysis of the effects of geographic and school context on a wide range of adolescent health behaviors.

Project Start
1998-03-01
Project End
1999-01-31
Budget Start
1997-10-01
Budget End
1998-09-30
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Department
Type
DUNS #
078861598
City
Chapel Hill
State
NC
Country
United States
Zip Code
27599
Fish, Jessica N; Pollitt, Amanda M; Schulenberg, John E et al. (2018) Measuring alcohol use across the transition to adulthood: Racial/ethnic, sexual identity, and educational differences. Addict Behav 77:193-202
Guzzo, Karen Benjamin; Hayford, Sarah R (2018) Adolescent Reproductive and Contraceptive Knowledge and Attitudes and Adult Contraceptive Behavior. Matern Child Health J 22:32-40
Pollard, Michael S; Tucker, Joan S; Green, Harold D et al. (2018) Adolescent peer networks and the moderating role of depressive symptoms on developmental trajectories of cannabis use. Addict Behav 76:34-40
King, Valarie; Boyd, Lisa M; Pragg, Brianne (2018) Parent-Adolescent Closeness, Family Belonging, and Adolescent Well-Being Across Family Structures. J Fam Issues 39:2007-2036
Goings, Trenette Clark; Hidalgo, Sebastian Teran; Howard, Matthew O (2018) Cigarette-smoking trajectories of monoracial and biracial Blacks: Testing the intermediate hypothesis. Am J Orthopsychiatry 88:354-362
Andrea, Sarah B; Messer, Lynne C; Marino, Miguel et al. (2018) Associations of Tipped and Untipped Service Work With Poor Mental Health in a Nationally Representative Cohort of Adolescents Followed Into Adulthood. Am J Epidemiol 187:2177-2185
Hartge, Joseph; Toledo, Patricia (2018) Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and its Comorbid Mental Disorders: An Evaluation of their Labor Market Outcomes. J Ment Health Policy Econ 21:105-121
van Draanen, Jenna; Prelip, Michael; Upchurch, Dawn M (2018) Consumption of fast food, sugar-sweetened beverages, artificially-sweetened beverages and allostatic load among young adults. Prev Med Rep 10:212-217
Nagata, Jason M; Garber, Andrea K; Tabler, Jennifer L et al. (2018) Prevalence and Correlates of Disordered Eating Behaviors Among Young Adults with Overweight or Obesity. J Gen Intern Med 33:1337-1343
Samari, Goleen; Coleman-Minahan, Kate (2018) Parental Gender Expectations by Socioeconomic Status and Nativity: Implications for Contraceptive Use. Sex Roles 78:669-684

Showing the most recent 10 out of 1305 publications