Background: Early sexual reproductive health (SRH) education is linked to a reduction in risky sexual behaviors. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are rising at alarming rates. Risky sexual behaviors, including initiation of sex before age 13, having more than four sexual partners, and lack of use of condoms, increase the chance of infection…

Purpose: Immigrant youth face both unique and disproportionate barriers to sexual health. Targeted sexual health education to redress these disparities requires creative and inclusive approaches that consider personal and community challenges and strengths. This study piloted a novel intervention: SExT: Sex Education by Theatre, a theatre-based,…

Identifying factors that influence adolescent intentions for COVID-19 vaccination is essential for developing strategic interventions to increase uptake, particularly in subgroups of at-risk adolescents. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adolescence is characterized by difficulties regulating attention and behavior, social…

Background: The comprehensive school health (CSH) framework has four components: social and physical environment; partnerships and services; teaching and learning; and policy. This study examines associations between CSH and student physical activity (PA). Methods: Using 2015/2016 COMPASS study survey data of 37,397 students (grades 9-12) from 80…

This study aimed to determine whether problematic internet use and healthy lifestyle behaviors among high school students varied by gender, grade level, academic average, and school type variables and to investigate the relationship between problematic internet use and healthy lifestyle behaviors. The sample of the study consisted of a total of…

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is an ongoing research program conducted at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research under a series of investigator-initiated research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse beginning in 1975. The integrated MTF study includes annual surveys of nationally-representative samples of 8th, 10th,…

Research demonstrates that teachers' cultural perspectives influence how they teach sexuality education; however, it is not clear how this occurs. Therefore, in my study, I explored how Xhosa teachers' cultural perspectives influenced their practice of teaching sexuality education to adolescent Xhosa learners. I purposively selected 9 female Xhosa…

There has never been a more pressing need for students to learn how to evaluate scientific information online than during the COVID-19 outbreak. Information, misinformation, and disinformation spread quickly across online news and social media platforms. This misleading or incorrect scientific information about infectious diseases could lead to…

The purpose of our study was to determine the extent to which individual characteristic variables predict trust of healthcare provider (HCP), lifestyle behaviors, and use of health services among adolescents attending public high school in rural Indiana. The sample included 224 individuals surveyed in 9th grade or 12th grade required courses.…

Several risk and protective factors are influential in predicting who uses or abstains from illicit substances during the high school years. The 2014 national cohort data from the Monitoring the Future survey shows the demographics, psychosocial factors, and attitudes regarding substance use that predict abstention by twelfth-graders (versus those…

The characteristics of and risk factors associated with binge drinking among South Korean and American adolescents were identified in this study. Data on adolescents in the 9th to 12th grades were extracted from two nationwide data sets: the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey System and the U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.…

The purpose of the study was to describe adherence to screen time (ST) and physical activity (PA) recommendations among Canadian youth. The present study was based on a representative sample of Canadian students from Grades 7 through 12 (N = 47,203). ST and PA as well as demographic (gender, ethnicity, grade, and province of residence) and…

This report is an extension of the 2018 report, "Teen Sport in America: Why Participation Matters Report" which set out to identify the health, academic, and psychological benefits that teen girls obtain on a sport-by-sport basis. The original 2018 Teen Sport report provided evidence of the important role that sports can play in…

Background: Steroid use among adolescents is an increasing health concern. Literature examining factors related to steroid use is limited. Methods: We investigated steroid use among 9th through 12th grade adolescents in the Greater Cincinnati area. A total of 38,414 adolescents completed the PRIDE Questionnaire. Associations between demographics,…

This study examines how two kinds of authentic research experiences related to smoking behavior--genotyping human DNA (wet lab) and using a database to test hypotheses about factors that affect smoking behavior (dry lab)--influence students' perceptions and understanding of scientific research and related science concepts. The study used pre and…