OBJECTIVE To explore the influence of preexisting social ties between romantic partners (ie, knowing the partner as a friend or acquaintance before a relationship was considered "romantic" by the adolescent) on sexual risk behaviors among adolescents. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS By using data from 6658 adolescents from Wave II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we ...

BACKGROUND Given the importance of adolescents' health in establishing health in the newly thriving generation of every society, the first step for adolescents' health promotion is health needs assessment. The present study was, therefore, conducted to design a valid and reliable scale for health needs assessment of male adolescents. METHODS This is an exploratory sequential mixed method stud...

OBJECTIVE Little research addresses the correlates of sexual aggression in nonclinical populations of adolescents. The purpose of this study was to identify risk and protective factors associated with sexual violence among male and female adolescents. METHODS We analyzed data on 71,594 students in the 9th and 12th grades responding to the 1992 Minnesota Student Survey, an anonymous, self-repo...

Preliminary, exploratory studies examine self-perceptions of the stigma of overweight in relatiopship to weight-losing patterns of female and male children of different ages. It is suggested that the concept of stigma may be a viable analytical tool in studying overweight as: an exclusive focus in interaction, related to a negative body image, overwhelming others with mixed emotions, clashing w...

BACKGROUND Clustering of multiple health-compromising behaviours is associated with an increased risk of various chronic diseases. There are few studies on patterns of clustering of multiple health-compromising behaviours in adolescents. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess how six health-compromising behaviours, namely, low fruit consumption, high sweet consumption, less frequent toot...

With millions of adolescents becoming infected with HIV globally, it is essential that barriers to much-needed interventions are reduced for at-risk adolescents. In this article we review the legal and policy framework in South Africa for adolescent access to male circumcision. We are of the view that the framework does confer protection for adolescent boys while enabling access to male circumc...

Objective. Little research addresses the correlates of sexual aggression in nonclinical populations of adolescents. The purpose of this study was to identify risk and protective factors associated with sexual violence among male and female adolescents. Methods. We analyzed data on 71 594 students in the 9th and 12th grades responding to the 1992 Minnesota Student Survey, an anonymous, self-repo...

OBJECTIVES To investigate teen dating violence (TDV) perpetration (physical, sexual or psychological violence) and association with STI and related sexual risk behaviours among urban male adolescents. METHODS Adolescent male survey participants (N=134) were aged 14-20 years, recruited from urban health centres. Using crude and adjusted logistic regression, TDV perpetration was examined in rel...

OBJECTIVES We assessed the proportion of and socio-ecological factors associated with ever having had sex with female sex workers (FSWs) among heterosexual adolescents. We also described the characteristics of the adolescents who reported inconsistent condom use with FSWs. METHODS This is a cross-sectional study (response rate: 73%) of 300 heterosexually active male adolescents of 16 to 19 ye...

BACKGROUND Sexual behaviour and sexual practices affect the risk for acquisition and transmission of HIV infection. This study tries to identify differences in sexual behaviour (condom use with non-marital partners, multiple sexual partnerships transactional sex and age mixing in sexual relationships), sexual practices (oral, anal and vagina sex), and forced sexual initiation based on sex and H...