Abstract
This chapter considers the adolescent life stage as one of increased health risk due to the initiation of various health-compromising behaviors and the establishment or consolidation of the factors that are their determinants. The emergence of the new concept of ‘behavioral health’ has enlarged thinking about health beyond medicine and biology to engage psychosocial and behavioral understanding as well. In relation to the latter, the chapter presents a psychosocial theoretical framework, Problem Behavior Theory, and documents its relevance for explaining variation in the health-related behaviors that constitute behavioral health, whether alcohol and marijuana use, risky driving, early sexual experience, or various others. The role that health-related behaviors can play in adolescent development is emphasized through the articulation of the concept of ‘transition proneness,’ and their co-variation is captured by the notion of a health-risk syndrome.
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Jessor, R. (1984). Adolescent development and behavioral health. In J. D. Matarazzo, S. M. Weiss, J. A. Herd, N. E. Miller & S. M. Weiss (Eds.), Behavioral health: A handbook of health enhancement and disease prevention (pp. 69–90). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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Jessor, R., Donovan, J.E., Costa, F. (2017). Problem Behavior Theory and Behavioral Health in Adolescence. In: Problem Behavior Theory and Adolescent Health . Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51349-2_22
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