Protective and risk factors in health-enhancing behavior among adolescents in China and the United States: does social context matter?
An explanatory model of adolescent health-enhancing behavior based on protective and risk factors at the individual level and in 4 social contexts was used in a study of school-based samples from the People's Republic of China (n = 1,739) and the United States (n = 1,596). A substantial account of variation in health-enhancing behavior--and of its developmental change over time--was provided by the model for boys and girls, and for the 3 grade cohorts, in both samples. In both samples, social context protective and risk factors accounted for more unique variance than did individual-level protective and risk factors, and context protection moderated both contextual and individual-level risk. Models protection and controls protection were of particular importance in the explanatory account.
Turbin
Mark S
MS
Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0483, USA. turbin@colorado.edu
Jessor
Richard
R
Costa
Frances M
FM
Dong
Qi
Q
Zhang
Hongchuan
H
Wang
Changhai
C
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D002681:China; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors; D012931:Social Environment; D012944:Social Support; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States