Objective: The authors examined whether alcohol use decreased condom use. Participants: The subjects were heavy-drinking students on 5 different college campuses. Methods: A face-to-face interview, administered between November of 2004 and February of 2007, gathered information about condom use, alcohol use, and other behaviors. Multivariate…

Understanding adolescents' attitudes regarding sexual behavior is key to understanding why they choose to engage or not engage in sex, which sexual behavior(s) they initiate and continue, and the outcomes experienced during and following sexual behavior. This article briefly explores adolescent sexual behavior, positive and negative outcomes…

Background: A lack of physical activity (PA) and the occurrence of overweight and obesity among school-aged youth have become a major societal problem. Arising from the general concern about the future generations' health, schools have been found to be potentially important settings to promote positive health behaviour, since all pupils can be…

The authors investigated the differences in characteristics and risk behaviors endorsed by detained adolescent methamphetamine users and compared them with other drug users. Subjects completed the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory and a questionnaire in which sociodemographics and behavioral information were explored and compared. Multivariate…

Background: Previous research has shown that youth who are homeless engage in high-risk behaviors. However, there has been little information published on nutritional and physical activity behaviors in this population, and studies comparing homeless youth in school with their non-homeless peers are scarce. This study compares weight-related risk…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether cognitive function in midlife predicts incident coronary heart disease (CHD), followed up over 6 years. Data on 5292 (28% women, mean age 55) individuals free from CHD at baseline were drawn from the British Whitehall II study. We used Cox regression to model the association between cognition…

We suggest that an over-arching "fitness factor" (an index of general genetic quality that predicts survival and reproductive success) partially explains the observed associations between health outcomes and intelligence. As a proof of concept, we tested this idea in a sample of 3654 US Vietnam veterans aged 31-49 who completed five cognitive…

There have been mixed results concerning any association between self-esteem and smoking prevalence in young people. The aim of this paper was to investigate cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between self-esteem and the uptake of smoking in childhood, and how various sub-components of self-esteem are related to smoking. A sample of…

Background: School environments may promote or hinder physical activity in young people. The purpose of this research was to examine relationships between school recreational environments and adolescent physical activity. Methods: Using multilevel logistic regression, data from 7638 grade 6 to 10 students from 154 schools who participated in the…

Purpose: Most individuals with Alzheimer's are cared for in their homes by unpaid family members. Research on caregiving focuses disproportionally on costs of care, service utilization, and negative psychosocial outcomes. Few narrative accounts of Alzheimer's exist; those that do suffer similar pejorative framings and narrow foci. No studies that…

In an era of curricular accountability where everything from reading and math scores to body fat are events to be assembled, scrutinized, and standardized, the health-conscious school plays an ever-important role in community and the nation (or so we are told). This qualitative study analyzes interviews with school leaders in their role in…

Background: The school setting is frequently used both to educate youth about risks involved in tobacco use and to implement tobacco prevention and cessation programs. Given that school-based programs have resulted in limited success, it is necessary to identify other setting-level intervention strategies. School tobacco policies represent a type…

This paper uses an ecological perspective to explore the risk factors associated with bullying behaviors among a representative sample of adolescents aged 11-14 (n = 9816, mean = 12.88, s = 0.9814). Data derived from the "Health Behavior in School Children: WHO Cross-National Survey" were used to model the relationship between bullying and media…

Background: Physical fitness testing is commonplace within schools and the physical education (PE) curriculum, with advocates claiming one of the key purposes of testing to be the promotion of healthy lifestyles and physical activity. Despite this, much controversy has surrounded the fitness testing of young people. Purpose: This paper draws on…

Black men who have sex with men (MSM) and black men who have sex with both men and women (MSMW) may not perceive themselves to be part of the larger gay community and hence may not heed prevention messages aimed at the community. Objective and Participants: To better understand the participants behaviors, the authors examined differences in condom…