The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of maternal depressive symptoms on adolescent alcohol use among a sample of Latino/Latina youth aged 10 to 16 years from a high-risk community. Direct and mediating effects of youth depressive symptoms, controlling for levels of concurrent emotion dysregulation, on alcohol use were examined.…

Serving as a language translator (broker) for family members during childhood can affect cognitive and emotional functions in both beneficial and detrimental ways. Child language brokers translate in a variety of contexts including conversations between their parents and financial, legal and medical professionals. Pressure to be involved in these…

Research suggests that child maltreatment predicts juvenile violence, but it is uncertain whether the effects of victimization persist into adulthood or differ across gender. Furthermore, we know little about the mechanisms underlying the victim-perpetrator cycle for males and females. Consequently, this study analyzed associations between child…

African American (AA) adolescent girls are at heightened risk for HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and thus knowledge of factors related to risky sexual behavior in this population is crucial. Using Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), this paper examines pathways from female caregivers' risky sexual behavior and substance use to…

This study examines the relationship between dating violence, forced sexual intercourse (FSI), and four measures of sexual risk taking (i.e., age at first sex, number of recent (within the last three months) sex partners, alcohol/drug use at last sex, and condom use at last sex) among a sample of 1124 ethnically diverse sexually active adolescents…

Although previous studies have identified a protective effect of marriage on risky health behaviors, gaps remain in our understanding of how marriage improves health, particularly among African Americans. This study uses longitudinal data to take selection into account and examines whether marital trajectories that incorporate timing, stability,…

Objective: To examine the associations among mental health problems, maternal monitoring and permissiveness, mother-daughter communication and attachment, and sexual behaviors among African American girls receiving outpatient psychiatric care. Youths with mental health problems report higher rates of HIV-risk behavior than do their peers, and…

The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education's online newsletter "The Education Innovator" is to promote innovative practices in education; to offer features on promising programs and practices; to provide information on innovative research, schools, policies, and trends; and to keep readers informed of key Department priorities and…

This study examines whether risk factors associated with child externalizing behavior symptoms differ between two similar low-income, urban communities, using baseline parent data of 154 African American youth (ages 9-15) participating in the Collaborative HIV-Prevention and Adolescent Mental Health Project (CHAMP) family program. Separate…

A sample of 146 African American adolescents living in impoverished neighborhoods with high HIV rates participated in the Chicago HIV Prevention and Adolescent Mental Health Project (CHAMP), a longitudinal study of adolescent HIV risk exposure. The current study examined self-reported reasons why African American adolescents may participate in…

Children and adolescents, up to approximately age 20, are more susceptible than adults to potential health risks from chemicals and environmental hazards. Hazardous chemicals can interrupt or alter the normal development of a child's body, leading to lasting damage. Since children are smaller than adults, similar levels of exposure to toxic…

"After School: Connecting Children at Risk With Responsible Adults to Help Reduce Youth Substance Abuse and Other Health-Compromising Behaviors (After School)" helped develop intermediary organizations in Boston, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area in order to create citywide systems of after-school programs. The…

The Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) is a functional assessment used in approximately 27 states to evaluate youth service outcomes. The CANS purports to measure both the youth's risk and protective factors, but its validity is largely un-researched. This study compares ratings of 304 delinquent youth on the CANS and ratings on a…

The nation's first coordinated, statewide teenage pregnancy prevention and support program, Parents Too Soon (PTS), is an interagency effort which accomplishes its goals through an integrated, cooperative effort and provides critical medical, social, nutritional, educational, and vocational services to male and female youth between 10 and 20 years…

This study of risk characteristics of 100 Illinois children/adolescents with emotional/behavior disorders admitted to programs to prevent the need for residential placements found that most of the children were in single parent families; almost 85% had average or above average intelligence; and almost half were exposed to divorce, poverty,…