Social influences on health-risk behaviors among minority middle school students.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether parent social influences are associated with health-risk behaviors more than peer social influences among young minority adolescents.


METHODS
We conducted a cross-sectional survey of seventh-grade students in a public urban magnet middle school using a survey instrument adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The sample consisted of all seventh-grade students in the school, and the survey was part of a needs assessment for a school-based health education program. We measured four health-risk behaviors: use of (a) tobacco, (b) alcohol, (c) onset of sexual activity, and (d) marijuana use; and five social influences: (a) parent disapproval of health-risk behaviors, (b) parent modeling of health-risk behaviors, (c) parent monitoring of health-risks, (d) peer disapproval of health risks, and (e) peer modeling of health-risk behaviors. The analyses included measures of the prevalence of health-risk behaviors, bivariate analyses to evaluate relationships between health-risk behaviors and social influences, and regressions analyses to determine the independent associations of the social influences with the four health-risk behaviors.


RESULTS
Twenty percent of respondents reported using tobacco, over 50% used alcohol in the past year, 13.3% were sexually active, and 12% reported marijuana use. Parent influences were associated with differences in alcohol use, whereas peer influences were associated with differences in all measured health-risk behaviors: tobacco and alcohol use, sexual activity, and marijuana use. Regression analyses demonstrated that peer social influences were the only measures independently associated with abstinence from tobacco (p < .05), alcohol (p < .01), sexual activity (p < .05), and marijuana use (p < .05). In all analyses, peers emerged as the most consistent social influence on health-risk behavior.


CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests peers and peer group behavior may be better predictors of adolescent health-risk behaviors than parental social influences among young adolescents.
Beal
A C
AC
Department of Pediatrics, Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. abeal@partners.org
Ausiello
J
J
Perrin
J M
JM
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000208:ethnology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts / Q000453:epidemiology; D008913:Minority Groups / Q000523:psychology*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016487:Parenting; D010379:Peer Group; D015995:Prevalence; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000208:ethnology; D012907:Smoking / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D012940:Social Problems / Q000208:ethnology*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000208:ethnology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires