NCJ Number
191232
Date Published
2001
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This paper presents a model of understanding adolescent vulnerability processes across six interrelated domains: individual, family, peers, school, social environment, and macrolevel environment.
Abstract
As conceptualized by Jessor (1992), risk behavior constitutes behaviors that jeopardize one or more elements of health or development. Whether the behavior is drinking, early sexual intercourse, or drug use, Jessor argues that these are neither random nor thrill-seeking but functional, purposive, instrumental, and goal-directed. A second tenet of the risk behavior is that common factors link often disparate behavior (e.g., cigarette smoking and early sexual intercourse). This paper elaborates the ecological model described by Jessor to include six domains: individual, family, peers, school, social environment, and macrolevel environment, and then tested three possible ways that protective factors altered risky health behaviors such as violence, cocaine use, and sexual intercourse. What was evident was that the relationships were complex and that the ways in which protective factors worked differed across contexts and across outcomes. For example, it was found that the classroom management climate was a key protective factor for weapon-related violence: it had a direct protective effect; it promoted school connectedness, another protective factor; and it enhanced the protective effect of school connectedness. In contrast, the classroom management climate did little to protect against cocaine use or sexual intercourse. The models and illustrative examples in this paper highlight the importance of going beyond a simple accounting of vulnerabilities and protective factors. For a policy or intervention to be useful, it must take into account the link between vulnerability and protective processes. Notes, figures, tables, and references