Parental Influences on Young Adult Sexual Risk Behaviors

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的总体目标是在全国具有代表性的年轻人样本中检查成年早期的性风险行为，并将这些行为与青春期遇到的全面的父母做法联系起来。这项研究将利用美国最大的青少年纵向研究——国家青少年健康纵向研究（Add Health）第一和第三波的数据。具体而言，拟议的项目将评估两个相互竞争的理论观点。第一种观点认为，青春期的父母教养方式会影响青少年的性行为，进而影响年轻人的性行为。这一观点表明，青春期的父母教育方式通过直接影响青少年的性行为，间接影响成年期的性行为。换句话说，那些在性风险行为方面的决定受到父母教育实践积极影响的青少年，由于在青春期做出了风险较低的性决定，因此在成年早期做出了风险较低的性决定。第二，理论视角假设，青少年时期的父母教养方式不仅通过间接影响青少年性行为，还通过直接影响成年早期的性行为来影响成年早期的性决策。这一观点表明，青少年时期父母教养行为对年轻人性风险行为的总体影响是间接影响（例如，通过青少年性行为）和直接影响（例如，独立于青少年性行为）的结合。第一种观点认为，父母对年轻人性行为的影响主要是通过影响青少年的性风险行为来实现的，而第二种观点认为，青春期的父母做法可能对成年早期的性决策有独特而重要的影响。两种相互竞争的理论观点的应用是研究年轻人性风险行为的一种新方法，对发展以父母为基础的预防计划具有重要的公共卫生意义，这些计划旨在预防青少年和年轻人的艾滋病毒、性传播感染和意外怀孕。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall aim of the present research is to examine sexual risk behaviors in early adulthood in a nationally representative sample of young adults, and to relate these behaviors to a comprehensive range of parenting practices encountered during adolescence. The study will utilize data from Waves 1 and 3 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), the largest longitudinal study of adolescents in the U.S.. Specifically, the proposed project will evaluate two competing theoretical perspectives. The first perspective posits that parenting practices during adolescence influence adolescent sexual behavior, which in turn influences young adult sexual behavior. This perspective suggests that parenting practices during adolescence indirectly influence sexual behavior during young adulthood through their direct influence on adolescent sexual behavior. In other words, adolescents whose decisions about sexual risk behavior are positively influenced by parenting practices make lower risk sexual decisions in young adulthood as a function of having made lower risk sexual decisions during adolescence. The second, theoretical perspective hypothesizes that parenting practices during adolescence influence sexual decision making in early adulthood not only through their indirect influence on adolescent sexual behavior, but also through their direct influence on sexual behavior in early adulthood. This perspective suggests that the total effect of parenting practices during adolescence on young adult sexual risk behavior is a combination of both an indirect effect (e.g., through adolescent sexual behavior) and a direct effect (e.g., independent of adolescent sexual behavior). Whereas the first perspective suggests that parental influences on young adult sexual behavior primarily work through their influence on adolescent sexual risk behavior, the second perspective proposes that parenting practices in adolescence may have unique and important implications for sexual decision making in early adulthood. The application of two competing theoretical perspectives is a novel approach to the study of sexual risk behaviors in young adults and has important public health implications for the development of parent-based prevention programs targeting the prevention of HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancies in adolescents and young adults.