Teen Risk-Taking

Teen Risk-Taking: A Statistical Portrait

Contents
Portrait Highlights
Measuring Health Risk Behaviors
Changes in Overall Risk-Taking, 1991-1997
Multiple Risks and Positive Behaviors
Reaching Multiple-Risk Teens
A Time for Cautious Optimism
Endnotes

Portrait Highlights
The most serious threats to the health and safety of adolescents and young adults are preventable. They result from such risk-taking behaviors as fighting, substance abuse, suicide, and sexual activity rather than from illnesses. These behaviors have harmful, even deadly, consequences.
Changes in teen participation in specific risk behaviors have been well documented. What is less well known, and of growing concern, is how overall teen risk-taking has changed. In
Teens' overall involvement in risk-taking has declined during the past decade (except among Hispanics), with fewer teens engaging in multiple risk behaviors. But multiple-risk teens remain an important group, responsible for most adolescent risk-taking. However, almost all risk-takers also engage in positive behaviors; they participate in desirable family, school, and community activities. These positive connections offer untapped opportunities to help teens lead healthier lives.
The booklet covers three aspects of risk behaviors among teens: (1) changes in risk-taking among high school students over the past decade; (2) incidence and patterns of multiple risk-taking among teens; and (3) extent and pattern of involvement of multiple risk-takers in school clubs, teen sports, religious services or youth groups, the workplace, and the health care system.
The data and discussions are based on analyses of three recent national surveys: the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS), the National Survey of Adolescent Males (NSAM), and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The research was conducted for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and
Further research is needed to better understand both risk-taking and adolescent development of this growing group of teens. Programs that are responsive and sensitive to the current ethnic and social diversity of Hispanic adolescents need to be developed and implemented.
Measuring Health Risk Behaviors
Health risk behaviors are voluntary behaviors that threaten the well-being of teens and limit their potential for achieving responsible adulthood.4 Such behaviors also are commonly referred to as "problem behaviors."5 Risk-taking is distinguishable from risk outcomes—the consequences of the behavior. For example, unprotected sexual intercourse is a risk behavior and is included in this analysis, while teenage pregnancy is a risk outcome and is not examined here.
The 10 health risk behaviors in this report are regular alcohol use, regular binge drinking, regular tobacco use, marijuana use, other illegal drug use, physical fighting, carrying a weapon, suicidal thoughts, -suicide attempt, and sexual risk-taking. The consequences associated with these behaviors vary considerably, but each poses a range of potential immediate and long-term health