Sexual behavior is always included in the list of “problem behaviors” and “risk behaviors” of adolescence, although it is considered a normal and acceptable behavior among adults.

As the study of adolescent sexual behavior has become established in the social science disciplines, we now apply to it the same new perspectives that we apply to other behaviors, both problem and nonproblem, that we are trying to explain. As new perspectives are applied to understanding the sexual behavior of adolescents, we need new research designs to illuminate these perspectives. In this chapter we show how these new perspectives have shaped the research design of a new study, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (hereafter, Add Health). Add Health provides the data to allow many kinds of adolescent behavior to be examined in ways that have not been possible before, at least on a national scale. Although Add Health is a broad study of adolescent health, it provides special opportunities to study sexual behavior.

This chapter explores how Add Health provides new opportunities to study sexual behavior from three perspectives: contextual (here network) effects, behavior genetics, and behavior of couples. The first section lays out the research design features of Add Health that implement the three perspectives. The three following sections illustrate how Add Health can be used to analyze sexual behavior from each new perspective.

The design of Add Health

Add Health is a study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in Grades 7 through 12 in the United States.