Adolescents in rural Uganda face unique opportunities and challenges to their health. The primary goal of this exploratory cross-sectional survey study was to describe the health behaviors of adolescents of age 13-19 living in four Ugandan fishing communities as a foundation for developing programs to reduce risky health behaviors and HIV/AIDS…

Collegiate alcohol use is a growing concern. Though alcohol use is often considered normative with this population, it is associated with negative consequences including unwanted sexual contact and suicidality (Core Institute, 2013) and as criminal charges for status offenses or driving under the influence. Often, offenses that occur on or near…

School health programs are united by their desire to promote health and health-related outcomes among youth. They are also united by the fact that their expected effects are contingent on successful program implementation, which is often impeded by a multitude of real-world barriers. Techniques used in management science may help optimize…

This study examined the effects of transitional instability on college students' (n = 402) psychological distress and sexual risk taking at two different time points over one year. Tested through structural equation models, the data revealed transitional instability had significant positive effects on psychological distress and sexual risk taking…

Background: South Africa has a high prevalence of HIV and obesity. Interventions to date have primarily focused on adolescents and adults. Prevention of obesity, in particular, is not addressed substantively in the current pre-adolescent school curriculum. Education about factors underlying these issues early in life could reach beyond children,…

This study examined multiple risk behaviors (violence, delinquency, and substance use) among 240 African American and 262 Hispanic preadolescent boys from urban schools in the Midwest United States. Latent transition analysis allowed patterns of multivariate risk to emerge uniquely within and across these ethnic groups, highlighting patterns for…

The current dominant model of HIV prevention intervention dissemination involves packaging interventions developed in one context, training providers to implement that specific intervention, and evaluating the extent to which providers implement it with fidelity. Research shows that providers rarely implement these programs with fidelity due to…

Aims: The use of illegal drugs is well documented in some alternative, underground music scenes, like the Goa trance scene. The aim of this article is to explore harm reduction practices employed by attendees of the Goa trance scene in order to identify potential pathways for targeted interventions in (underground) music scenes, such as Goa…

School-based sex education is an underdeveloped and challenging issue to address in Iran. This paper provides insights into the main challenges in developing and implementing school-based sex education in Iran. Through an investigation of one Iranian boys' school that, in contrast to the majority of Iranian educational institutions, has an…

Effective school-based obesity prevention programs are needed to prevent and reduce the growing obesity risk among youth. Utilizing the evidence-rich areas of violence and substance use prevention, translation science may provide an efficient means for developing curricula across multiple health behaviors. This paper introduces Pathways to Health,…

Problem: College life offers several challenges for students, particularly freshmen who often find themselves in an unsupervised environment with multiple opportunities to engage in a variety of risk behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine the sexual behaviors of college freshmen enrolled at a U.S. Hispanic Serving Institution. Method:…

Background: To monitor priority health risk behaviors and school health policies and practices, respectively, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) and the School Health Profiles (Profiles). CDC is often asked about the use and application of these survey data to improve…

Research indicates that developing public health programs to modify parenting behaviors could lead to multiple beneficial health outcomes for children. Developing feasible effective parenting programs requires an approach that applies a theory-based model of parenting to a specific domain of child health and engages participant representatives in…

Schools are overloaded with health promotion programs that, altogether, focus on a broad array of behavioral domains, including substance abuse, sexuality and nutrition. Although the specific content of programs varies according to the domain focus, programs usually address similar concepts: knowledge, attitudinal beliefs, social influences and…

This article describes the development and growth of "Lifestyle Improvements in the Family Environment" ("L.I.F.E."), a school-based heart-health screening and intervention program. The primary goals of "L.I.F.E." through three rounds of grant funding remained constant: (a) to identify cardiovascular risk factors in…