Adolescent Sex, Well-Being, and Normative Contexts

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究将从三个方面评估青少年性活动对健康和发展的影响：心理健康、学业投入和风险行为。青少年性交与身体健康的几个方面有着明确而直接的联系：美国青少年怀孕率为71（每1000名15-19岁的女孩），青少年生育率为42，最近的估计表明，四分之一的少女（38%的性经验少女）患有性传播感染（STI）。我们对性行为如何影响青少年和生命后期的健康状况知之甚少。先前的研究将青少年性行为与抑郁、对教育不感兴趣以及吸毒等危险行为联系起来，但这些联系背后的机制仍不明确。我们的研究将探讨青少年的社会规范如何调节他们的突发性性行为和幸福感之间的关系。我们的重点是全球和地方规范，有助于规范性背景下的性。全球规范反映了一般的社会期望，这些期望通常由父母和其他规范影响来源加强。这些全球规范更能接受年龄较大的青少年、男孩和恋爱中的人的性行为。相比之下，地方规范起源于更直接的社会环境，可能会加强、修改或否定全球规范。我们在三个层面上研究规范性背景，将青少年置于友谊网络和学校中。该项目有两个目的。第一个目的是调查关于青少年性行为的全球规范是否以及如何影响性与心理健康、学校参与和危险行为之间的联系。第二个目的是分析全球规范的影响在多大程度上取决于朋友和同学的本地规范。我们将采用多层次模型，并利用包括饱和学校样本和青少年健康学业成就研究在内的大型综合Add Health档案中的大部分数据文件的信息。这些数据非常适合我们对多层规范和三个幸福领域的分析。结合现有的关于性行为和身体健康的知识，我们的调查将提供一个全面的关于性对青少年健康和幸福的影响的画像。我们对规范背景的关注突出了促进青少年福祉的重要环境，而这在青少年性研究或政策圈中很少被讨论。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This research will assess the effects of adolescent sexual activity on health and development across three domains: mental health, academic engagement, and risk behaviors. Adolescent sexual intercourse has clear and direct links to several aspects of physical health: the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is 71 (per 1000 girls 15-19), the teen birth rate is 42, and recent estimates indicate that one in four teen girls (38% of sexually experienced teen girls) have a sexually transmitted infection (STI). We know less about how sexual activity influences other outcomes that shape well-being in adolescence and at later stages in the life course. Prior research links adolescent sex to depression, disinterest in education, and risk behaviors like drug use, but the mechanisms underlying these associations remain ambiguous. Our research will examine how the norms that characterize the social world of adolescents moderate the relationship between their emergent sexual behavior and well- being. Our specific focus is on global and local norms that contribute to the normative context of sex. Global norms reflect general, societal expectations that are typically reinforced by parents and other sources of normative influence. These global norms are more accepting of sex among older teens, boys, and those in romantic relationships. Local norms, in contrast, originate in more immediate social settings and may reinforce, modify or repudiate global norms. We examine normative context at three levels, situating adolescents within friendship networks and within schools. The project has two aims. The first aim is to investigate if and how global norms about adolescent sex condition the association between sex and mental health, school engagement, and risky behavior. The second aim is to analyze the degree to which the influence of global norms is contingent on local norms of friends and schoolmates. We will employ multi-level models and utilize information from most of the data files in the large and comprehensive Add Health archive including saturated school samples and the Adolescent Health Academic Achievement Study. These data are uniquely suited to our analyses of multiple layers of norms and three domains of well-being. Coupled with existing knowledge about sexual behavior and physical health, our investigation will provide a comprehensive portrait of the effects of sex on health and well-being in adolescence. Our focus on normative context highlights an important milieu for promoting adolescent well-being that is rarely discussed in studies of teen sex or in policy circles. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Adolescent sexual intercourse has clear and direct links to aspects of physical health including pregnancy and STIs. This research will explore how sexual activity influences mental health, academic engagement, and risk behaviors. It will consider whether and how the normative context of sex shapes its consequences for health and well-being.