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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Kenneth Steinman, PhD, MPH¹, Elizabeth Cooksey, PhD², Townsand Price-Spratlen, PhD², Korie Edwards, PhD², and Linda James Myers, PhD³. (1) School of Public Health, The Ohio State University, 1841 Millikin Road, 436 Cunz Hall, Columbus, OH 43210, 614-292-3158, ksteinman@sph.osu.edu, (2) Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, 339 Bricker Hall, 190 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, (3) Department of African-American and African Studies, Ohio State University, 386F University Hall, 230 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210

The extensive literature on adolescent religiosity and sexual behavior has often been hampered by methodological limitations and inconsistent findings. Columbus Congregations for Healthy Youth (CoCHY) is a research project that aims to address several such limitations. CoCHY's innovations include: (1) Genuine collaboration among academic researchers, congregation leaders and health agency representatives; (2) Recruiting participants through congregations rather than schools, (3) Focusing on within-group differences (e.g., “what distinguishes religiously-active African-American youth who are sexually active from their peers who are not?”); and (4) Employing extensive, validated measures of adolescent religiosity and sexual behavior. This paper presents preliminary results from the first wave of a survey of 498 African-American youths (ages 13-19) recruited through 18 congregations in Columbus, Ohio. At each congregation, youths completed surveys using self-administered personal digital assistants. Multi-item scales assessed different dimensions of religiosity, including religious beliefs, public and private religious activity, religious network characteristics (e.g., peers, family) and spirituality. Analyses describe how different sexual behaviors (e.g., oral sex; sexual intercourse) are differentially associated with different dimensions of religiosity. Findings indicate that different dimensions of religiosity are strongly associated with sexual behavior, although the effects often vary by gender. Results are discussed in the context of findings from nationally representative studies (e.g., National Study of Youth and Religion; National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health) and relate to the potential and limitations of faith-based approaches to adolescent sexual health promotion.

Learning Objectives: By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to

(
• Identify limitations of existing research on adolescent religiosity and sexual behavior; (
• Describe at least two different domains of adolescent religiosity; (
• Discuss how these different domains may be associated with sexual behavior among Black church youth.

Keywords: Sexual Behavior, Adolescents

Related Web page: www.sph.osu.edu/cochy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No