Nonmarital Cohabitation and Health in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

描述(由申请者提供)：拟议的项目将研究青春期和青春期的非婚同居对个人身心健康的影响，以及决定性别和种族/民族群体未来成年人健康的健康行为。非婚同居的迅速增加明显改变了美国的浪漫关系格局；25岁之前，同居已经成为男性和女性的标准体验。同居的迅速增加引发了人们对参与这种家庭形式的个人的生活后果的担忧，因为研究表明，同居者的承诺水平较低，同居比婚姻更容易解除。虽然同居的流行率和模式一般都有很好的记录，但我们对非婚同居的后果知之甚少。对于年轻参与者来说尤其如此；尽管同居在年轻时的重要性越来越大，但同居文学继续关注成年人，并对所有年龄段的同居经历一视同仁。年龄和意义的异质性(根据伴侣的同居目标和目的--将同居分为四种不同的类型)都被先前的研究忽视了。大量研究表明，已婚人士比其他人活得更长、更健康。关于同居带来的健康益处的类似研究很少，而且几乎不存在从青春期到青春期的类似研究，尽管这些年龄段的同居水平相当高。我们的项目有三个具体目标：1)分别为男性和女性以及种族/民族生成一系列从青春期到青春期的健康结果和行为的描述性轨迹，并使用基于半参数组的建模策略来检验关系状态(婚姻、同居、单身)与特定轨迹之间的相关性；2)使用关系史上的数据来模拟同居经历如何因果影响与青春期到青春期的婚姻或单身相关的健康和健康行为，使用纵向固定效应模型来控制所有未观察到的个人稳定特征；3)探索从青春期到成年，年龄(恋爱经历的时间)和同居意义(4种类型)的异质性如何改变对同居在健康中的作用的评估。将使用国家青少年纵向研究的纵向数据；这是有史以来对青少年进行的最大规模的研究，也是唯一一项能够检查四种不同类型的同居与各种健康结果之间的关联的研究。 公共卫生相关性：这项研究将通过提供关于青春期恋爱关系(同居和婚姻)对身心健康和危险行为的长期影响的经验发现，为以青少年和年轻人的健康为目标的项目提供信息。该项目强调了同居的时间和类型或意义上的差异对结果的影响(年龄和意义上的异质性)。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed project will examine how nonmarital cohabitation during adolescence and young adulthood causally impacts individual physical and mental health, as well as healthy behaviors that determine future adult health across gender and racial/ethnic groups. The rapid rise in nonmarital cohabitation has markedly changed the landscape of romantic relationships in the United States; cohabitation has become a normative experience for both men and women by age 25. The rapid increase in cohabitation raises concerns about its consequences for the lives of individuals involved in this family form, as research indicates that cohabiters hold lower levels of commitment, and cohabitations are more easily dissolved than marriages. Although the prevalence and patterns of cohabitation have generally been well documented, we know very little about the outcomes of nonmarital cohabitation. This is especially true for young participants; despite the increasing significance of cohabitation at younger ages, the cohabitation literature continues to focus on adults, and treats the experiences of cohabitation the same at all ages. Heterogeneity with age and "meaning" (the goals and purpose of the cohabitation, according to the partners - classifying cohabitation into 4 distinct types) has both been neglected by prior research. A considerable amount of research has established that married individuals live longer, healthier lives than others. Similar research on the parallel health benefits of cohabitation is sparse, and virtually nonexistent from adolescence into young adulthood despite substantial levels of cohabitation at these ages. Our project has three specific aims: 1) Generate descriptive trajectories of an array of health outcomes and behaviors from adolescence into young adulthood separately for men and women and for race/ethnicity, and examine correlations between relationship status (marriage, cohabitation, singlehood) with particular trajectories, using a semi-parametric group-based modeling strategy; 2) Use data on relationship histories to model how cohabitation experience causally affects health and healthy behaviors relative to marriage or singlehood from adolescence into young adulthood using longitudinal fixed effects models that control for all unobserved stable characteristics of the individuals; 3) Explore how heterogeneity in age (the timing of relationship experience) and in meaning of cohabitation (4 types) alter assessments of the role of cohabitation in health from adolescence into young adulthood. Longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescents will be used; it is the largest study of adolescents ever conducted, as well as the only one with the means to examine the association between four different types of cohabitation and a variety of health outcomes. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This study will inform programs that target adolescent and young adult health by providing empirical findings about the long-term effects of adolescent romantic relationships (cohabitation and marriage) on mental and physical health and risky behaviors. The project highlights effects of differences in timing and in the type, or meaning, of cohabitation on outcomes (heterogeneity in age and meaning).