The prevention of teen dating violence is a major public health priority. However, the dearth of longitudinal studies makes it difficult to develop programs that effectively target salient risk factors. Using a school-based sample of ethnically diverse adolescents, this longitudinal study examined whether substance use (alcohol, marijuana, and…

A long-term public health goal in the United States involves convincing adolescents to postpone sexual activity or promote responsible sexual activity. This study investigated the effect of using infant simulators on sexuality, child care attitudes and knowledge with a sample of 309 high school students from seven different states. The treatment…

Latino girls (Latinas) experience disproportionate rates of emotional distress, including suicidal ideation, which may be indicative of inadequate coping abilities. Prevention of mental health problems, a U.S. public health priority, is particularly critical for Latina adolescents due to lack of access to mental health treatments. The purpose of…

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a long-term study of American adolescents, college students, and adults through age 50. It has been conducted annually by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research since its inception in 1975. It is supported under a series of investigator-initiated, competing research grants from the National…

The Monitoring the Future (MTF) study is an ongoing series of national surveys of American adolescents and adults that has provided the nation with a vital window into the important, but largely hidden, problem behaviors of illegal drug use, alcohol use, tobacco use, anabolic steroid use, and psychotherapeutic drug use. For more than a third of…

The use of illicit and licit drugs continues to be a major public health concern. Many prevention and drug education programs address this issue by attempting to enhance self-esteem. The idea is that increased levels of self-esteem will serve as a protective factor in decreasing the motivation and increasing the resistance to use drugs. This study…

Traditionally, school-based sex education has provided information-based programmes, with the assumption that young people make rational decisions with regard to the use of condoms. However, these programmes fail to take into account contextual issues and developing subjectivities. This paper presents the talk of 42 young people from a New Zealand…