Neighborhood Context, School Context, and Romantic Relationships

描述(由申请者提供)：这项拟议的研究的目标是研究邻里和学校环境如何构成青春期形成的浪漫和性关系。社区和学校塑造了对非正式社会控制的暴露，对早育的看法，以及对浪漫和性关系的信念。研究关系的形成过程和特点以及社区和学校如何构建它们是更好地理解生殖健康和家庭形成中的亚群差异的关键一步。虽然有大量关于邻里关系影响的文献，以及较少程度的学校影响，对性行为和避孕行为、早育和性传播感染(STI)的影响，以及关于浪漫和性关系对这些结果的重要性的少量但不断增长的文献，以前还没有研究过邻里和学校环境在塑造这些浪漫和性关系方面的作用。拟议的调查调查了社区和学校环境，特别是这些环境的社会文化特征，如何影响青春期伴侣的选择和形成的关系类型。为了实现我们的目标，我们将分析国家青少年健康纵向研究(ADD Health)的第一和第三波，其中包括青少年的邻里和学校环境以及青少年随后的恋爱经历的数据。研究的具体目的是：1)调查邻里和学校社会文化背景对青少年恋爱和性关系特征的影响；2)考察邻里和学校社会文化背景对青少年恋爱和性关系特征的交互影响。这项拟议的研究将使用生态计量学方法来创建社区和学校的社会文化衡量标准，并将使用多层次建模技术来解释数据的嵌套结构。 公共卫生相关性：了解青少年的浪漫和性关系以及邻里和学校环境如何影响这些关系的特征与人口健康相关，因为这些早期的生命过程会影响他们的生殖健康，并为未来的家庭形成、选择和行为奠定基础。研究结果将提供有关社区和学校在构建年轻人关系方面的作用的新信息，并将有助于旨在促进性健康和降低意外怀孕和性传播感染风险的政策和社区一级方案战略。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of the proposed research is to examine how neighborhood and school contexts structure the romantic and sexual relationships that are formed during adolescence. Neighborhoods and schools shape exposure to informal social control, perceptions of early childbearing, and beliefs about romantic and sexual relationships. Studying relationship formation processes and characteristics and the ways in which neighborhoods and schools structure them is a key step towards better understanding subgroup variation in reproductive health and family formation. Although there is a large literature on neighborhood effects, and to a lesser extent, school effects, on sexual and contraceptive behavior, early childbearing, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and a small but growing literature on the importance of romantic and sexual relationships for these outcomes, no prior research has examined the role of neighborhood and school contexts in shaping these romantic and sexual relationships. The proposed inquiry investigates how neighborhood and school contexts, specifically, the sociocultural characteristics of these contexts, influence the selection of partners and the types of relationships that are formed during adolescence. To achieve our objective, we will analyze Waves I and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which includes data on adolescents' neighborhood and school contexts and on adolescents' subsequent relationship experiences. The specific aims are to: 1) investigate the effects of neighborhood and school sociocultural contexts on the characteristics of adolescents' romantic and sexual relationships; and 2) examine the interactive effects between neighborhood and school sociocultural contexts on the characteristics of adolescents' romantic and sexual relationships. The proposed study will use ecometric methods to create neighborhood and school sociocultural measures and will employ multilevel modeling techniques to account for the nested structure of the data. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Understanding adolescents' romantic and sexual relationships and the ways in which neighborhood and school contexts influence the characteristics of these relationships is relevant to population health because these early life course experiences affect their reproductive health and set the stage for future family formation choices and behaviors. The study findings will provide new information regarding the role of neighborhoods and schools in structuring young people's relationships and will benefit policy and community-level programmatic strategies aimed at promoting sexual health and reducing the risk of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.