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The Role of Religious Socialization and Religiosity in African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents’ Sexual Initiation

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Abstract

This study determined the nature of the associations between religious socialization, religiosity, and adolescent sexual initiation. Data originated from the National Survey of American Life-Adolescent (n = 1170), a nationally representative study of black adolescents. Factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and logistic regression were used to evaluate hypotheses. Results indicated that as black adolescents received more messages about religious beliefs and practices, their religiosity was greater and, in turn, they were less likely to report sexual initiation; findings varied by ethnicity, gender, and age. Findings contribute to understanding religious socialization and its association with sexual initiation.

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Acknowledgements

The National Survey of American Life (NSAL) is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; U01-MH57716) with supplemental support from the OBSSR Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research and the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of Michigan. Dr. Taggart was supported by a pre-doctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (T32AI007001), a post-doctoral fellowship supported by Award Numbers T32MH020031 and P30MH062294 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and was a Scholar with the HIV/AIDS, Substance Abuse, and Trauma Training Program (HA-STTP), at the University of California, Los Angeles; supported through an award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R25DA035692). Dr. Powell was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (K01DA032611). Dr. Chatters was supported by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences: Promoting Ethnic Diversity in Public Health (R25GM058641).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, Yale University, 135 College St, Suite #200, New Haven, CT, 06510, USA

    Tamara Taggart

  2. Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Nisha Gottfredson, Susan Ennett & Eugenia Eng

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Wizdom Powell

  4. Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, School of Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Linda M. Chatters

  5. Public Health Leadership Program, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Lori Carter-Edwards

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  1. Tamara Taggart
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Correspondence to Tamara Taggart.

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Taggart, T., Gottfredson, N., Powell, W. et al. The Role of Religious Socialization and Religiosity in African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents’ Sexual Initiation. J Relig Health 57, 1889–1904 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0605-3

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