Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #101003

Stevenson Fergus, PhD, MPH, School of Physical and Health Education, Queen's University, Physical Education Centre, Room 218, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada, 613-533-6000 ext. 78656, ferguss@post.queensu.ca and Marc Zimmerman, PhD, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, 1420 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

Background: Adolescence and the transition to adulthood are developmental periods when experimentation with and adoption of new roles and behaviors occurs. Understanding sexual risk behavior trajectories during these periods, and their psychosocial predictors, will help develop HIV prevention interventions. Parents are vital positive influences in adolescents' lives, though few studies have investigated how mother and father support may differ, or have studied parental influences on sexual risk behavior during the transition to adulthood.

Methods: We introduced resilience predictors to a piecewise growth model of sexual risk behavior in a predominantly African-American sample (n = 512) studied over four years of high school and four years during the transition to adulthood. Controlling for demographic factors, we investigated compensatory and protective resilience models of mother and father support for the risks substance use and psychological distress.

Results: Sexual risk behavior increased during adolescence, and peaked during the transition to adulthood. During adolescence, mother support interacted with substance use, and father support interacted with psychological distress, such that support protected against the negative effects of the risks. Also during adolescence, mother support compensated for psychological distress, and father support compensated for substance use. We found no evidence for protective or compensating effects of support during the transition to young adulthood.

Conclusions: Support received from parents may influence the sexual risk behaviors of urban adolescents, with mothers and fathers influencing their children in different ways. Leveraging the effects that parents can have on the risk behaviors of adolescents may be a successful intervention approach.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participants in this session will be able to

• Describe two models of adolescent resilience,
• Identify how parental support can counteract the effects of substance use and psychological distress on sexual risk behavior, and
• Discuss intervention implications of these findings.

Keywords: Adolescents, Sexual Risk Behavior

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation