Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/ScottBoggess

This booklet provides a statistical portrait of teen participation in 10 of the most prevalent risk behaviors. It focuses on the overall participation in each behavior and in multiple risk-taking. The booklet presents the overall incidence and patterns of teen involvement in the following risk behaviors: Regular alcohol use; Regular binge drinking; Regular tobacco use; Marijuana use; Other illegal drug use; Fighting; Weapon carrying; Suicidal thoughts; Suicide attempts; Risky sexual activity.

A handful of preventable health-risk behaviors-violence, substance use, suicide, and sexual activity-are responsible for much of the mortality and morbidity experienced in adolescence and early adulthood. Adolescents' participation in many of these health-risk behaviors has changed in recent years. Newspapers report increases in marijuana use among high school students one day and declines in their sexual or criminal activity another. Because changes in the prevalence of specific health-risk behaviors vary, some increasing and some declining, shifts in adolescents' overall exposure to health-risks are difficult to pinpoint. While it is well established that many risk behaviors co-occur changes in the extent and patterns of multiple risk-taking are unknown.

A portrait of multiple risk-taking among teens. Using recent data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and the 1995 National Survey of Adolescent Males (NSAM), we describe the degree to which teens engage in multiple health risk behaviors and contrast it with the extent to which teens participate in positive behaviors such as spending time with parents and being involved in extra-curricular activities. Describing participation in these behaviors is an important part of understanding teens' exposure to health risks and monitoring efforts to reduce those risks.

The authors analyze three cohorts of unmarried metropolitan teenage males: those aged 17-19 in 1979, in 1988 and in 1995. These time frames capture a period of increasing (1979 to 1988) then decreasing (1988 to 1995) sexual activity. By examining time periods with reversing trends, the authors offer a relatively strong framework within which to understand factors related to both increased and decreased sexual activity.

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