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Do Family and Parenting Factors in Adolescence Influence Condom Use in Early Adulthood in a Multiethnic Sample of Young Adults?

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Abstract

Studies show that positive family factors help protect adolescents from engaging in risky sexual activities, but do they continue to protect adolescents as they transition to late adolescence/early adulthood? Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we examined whether family support, parent–child closeness, parental control/monitoring of adolescent behaviors and parent–child communication about sex, assessed in adolescence, were related to condom use in late adolescence/early adulthood among African American (n = 1,986), Chinese American (n = 163), Mexican American (n = 1,011) and White (n = 6,971) youth. Controlling for demographic variables and number of sex partners, the results showed that family support was positively related and parent–child communication was negatively related to condom use for the sample as a whole and for the white sample, but not for the other groups. Parent–child communication about sex and parental control were negatively related to condom use in the Chinese American sample. None of the family factors was related to condom use in the African American or Mexican American samples. Overall, parents talked more with daughters than sons about sexual matters. Condom use was most common among African Americans and among males. Greater attention to cultural expectations regarding sex and gender roles, as well as the causal ordering of effects, are important directions for future research.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by funding from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health (NCMHD/NIH), award P20 MD002316 (F. Marsiglia, P.I.). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NCMHD or the NIH. This research used data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. We thank the reviewers of this paper for their useful suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, 85004, USA

    Mary Rogers Gillmore

  2. College of Nursing and Health Innovation, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA

    Angela Chia-Chen Chen

  3. School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Steven A. Haas

  4. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC, USA

    Albert M. Kopak

  5. School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Alyssa G. Robillard

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Gillmore, M.R., Chen, A.CC., Haas, S.A. et al. Do Family and Parenting Factors in Adolescence Influence Condom Use in Early Adulthood in a Multiethnic Sample of Young Adults?. J Youth Adolescence 40, 1503–1518 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-011-9631-0

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