Masters Thesis

Parental factors in adolescence as predictors of sexual behavior among Hispanic/Latino emerging adults

Risky sexual behavior is associated with many adverse health outcomes including sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies. These outcomes are elevated among adolescents and emerging adults and cost the nation billions of dollars annually. Studies show that parental influences (socioeconomic status, monitoring, and communication) play a significant role in reducing risky sexual behaviors among teenagers. However, it is not generally known whether this influence continues into early adulthood, neither has it been studied specifically among the Hispanic/Latino population. Therefore, this study utilized secondary data obtained from Project RED (Reteniendo y Entendiento Diversidad para Salud) and explored whether or not parental factors, cultural identity and gender of 10th graders in Southern California will predict the use of condoms as emerging adults, an important health protective sexual behavior. Logistic regression was used to assess these predictive associations. The sample was composed of 57.6% females and 42.4% males. At Time 1, the respondents’ mean age was 15.86 years and 20.93 years at Time 2. Findings of the study indicated that, for the sample, parental communication (OR = 1.116, p = .025) was the only parental factor predictive of condom use in emerging adulthood. However, these predictors lost significance in the aggregate logistic model. The implications of the findings for public health and health education are discussed. Several limitations that reduce the generalizability of the results of this study are also outlined.

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