Neighborhood Structural Inequality, Collective Efficacy, and Sexual Risk Behavior among Urban Youth

Neighborhood structural inequality, collective efficacy, and sexual risk behavior among urban youth.

We draw on collective efficacy theory to extend a contextual model of early adolescent sexual behavior. Specifically, we hypothesize that neighborhood structural disadvantage--as measured by levels of concentrated poverty, residential instability, and aspects of immigrant concentration--and diminished collective efficacy have consequences for the prevalence of early adolescent multiple sexual p...

Urban Disorder , Crime , and Neighborhood Collective Efficacy

Neighborhood Inequality, Collective Efficacy, and the Spatial Dynamics of Urban Violence

This study links police records, vital statistics, census data, and an original survey of 8,872 Chicago residents to assess an integrated theoretical perspective on neighborhood-level variations in homicide. We highlight two neglected dimensions of neighborhood context – social processes and spatial interdependence. Structural characteristics in 1990 and survey measures from 1995 are used to mo...

Do Abstinence-Plus Interventions Reduce Sexual Risk Behavior among Youth?

Perspectives A bstinence until marriage has emerged as a primary policy goal in efforts to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health—in the United States and increasingly worldwide. While few would argue with abstinence as a personal choice (no one should be forced to have sex), there are serious questions about whether government promotion of abstinence should be a public health goal. ...

High-risk sexual behavior among young urban students.

A substantial number of adolescents, including many as young as 11, engage in high-risk sexual behavior. In a 1992 survey of 2,248 urban students in grades 6, 8 and 10, 45% of respondents, including 28% of sixth graders, were sexually active; the majority of sexually experienced students had had two or more partners. Among sexually active respondents, however, the level of condom use at last in...