Original ArticlesHigh school athletic participation, sexual behavior and adolescent pregnancy: a regional study☆
Section snippets
Methods
The hypotheses were tested using data previously collected from a longitudinal study of a random, population sample of 699 families with adolescents (ages 13 to 16 years) living in households in a northeastern metropolitan area. Sampling was done by means of random-digit-dial procedures on a computer-assisted telephone network. Criteria for inclusion into the sample were that the household have at least one adolescent aged 13–16 years and at least one parent (biological or surrogate). A general
Results
The unweighted Wave 3 (n = 612) sample was used in the present analysis. Fifty-five percent of the respondents were female. Thirty percent of the respondents were black. Respondent distribution across the four age categories was relatively even. Family income was dispersed fairly evenly across the response spectrum, tailing off at the highest and lowest categories. The mean response with respect to reported family cohesion (Wave 1) was 3.17, on a scale of 1.00 to 5.00. A total of 159
Discussion
The findings support the contention that female athletic participation is associated with lower rates of sexual activity and pregnancy. The path model showed that the influence of athletic participation on girls’ pregnancy risk was mediated through sexual behavior; (i.e., female athletes engaged in sex less frequently which, in turn, lowered pregnancy risk). For boys, however, athletic participation was unrelated to the rate of sexual activity, while arts participation was associated with
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This research was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grants AA06925 and AA09425 and the Women’s Sports Foundation with funds from the Packard Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the RGK Foundation, and the Sara Lee Foundation.