How old are young people when they start having sex? Unravelling the applicability of Cox proportional hazards regression

How old are young people when they start having sex? Although this question is important for educators and policymakers, its answer can easily mislead due to methodology that does not take into account age-censoring generational trends. This study investigated whether 1-year birth-year cohorts be jointly modeled by Cox proportional hazards regression estimate sexual debut ages investigate age trends different behaviors. We used pooled data from three Dutch periodic population-based surveys, which 33,377 participants, born between 1980 2004, completed an online questionnaire. appropriate if hazard changes over birth years appear proportionally similar among ages. The shows such petting, oral sex, intercourse, but masturbation, French kissing, or manual sex. For the model estimates interpreted as approximate linear increase of 1 month in median per cohort, resulting estimated 18.17 current (2020) generation adolescents. If assumptions met, we recommend using modeling approach how since method yields precise pooling information across without arbitrarily combining them multiple-year groups. first intercourse increasing, so continuous sexuality education throughout high school advisable, addition early education.