| Room 519-B | Sexuality across the Lifecycle Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Time: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM |
The Effect of Social Capital and Sociodemographics on Adolescent Risk and Health Behaviours.
Smylie, Lisa *,1, Medaglia, Sheri1, Maticka-Tyndale, Eleanor1, 1 University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
ABSTRACT- Much of the research on adolescent sexual health has focused on risky sexual behaviour in isolation. Adolescence, however, is a developmental period characterized by heightened potential for various risk-taking behaviours, including tobacco use, binge drinking and risky sexual behaviour, that are strongly associated and that have important implications for general health and well-being. These risk behaviours among adolescents are important health issues because of the social and economic costs associated with them, including accidents, violence, suicide, chronic or acute health conditions, truncated educational achievement and reduced employment opportunity, as well as direct financial burdens to health care and to other social services. This paper considers sexual risk-taking behaviour among youth in the broader context of risk behaviour. Since sexual risk-taking, is found to cluster with other risk behaviours, such as tobacco use and binge drinking, the strength of this paper comes from consideration sexual risk behaviour in the context of other forms of risk-taking in adolescence. This study uses the concept of social capital to understand psychosocial influences on adolescent risk-taking in the Canadian context. Using data from the 1996/1997 the National Population Health Survey (NPHS), the paper contrasts three interpretations of social capital by Bourdieu (1985, 1990), Coleman (1988a, 1990), and Putnam (2000) in their association with adolescent risk behaviours, including smoking, alcohol consumption and risky sexual behaviour. Social capital indicators were significant predictors of risk behaviour among males and females, however they were stronger for males than females. The findings support the conclusion that social capital is an important explanatory framework to consider when trying to understand adolescent behaviours.
Key words: sexual risk behaviour, adolescence, social relationships