Supportive Relationships and Sexual Risk Behavior in Adolescence: An Ecological–Transactional Approach

Objective To examine the longitudinal associations between supportive relationships with friends and parents and sexual risk behavior in adolescence based on an ecological– transactional perspective. Methods Analyses were conducted on 2,652 sexually active adolescents from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Results African-American adolescents had lower risk for sexual risk behavior. Supportive friendships and parent connectedness interacted in predicting decreased likelihood of sexual risk behavior. Mother–child communication about sex contributed to decreased like-lihood of sexual risk only for girls. There were also small reciprocal effects of sexual risk behavior on decreased relationship quality over time. Conclusion To better understand the parents’ role in adolescent sexual risk behavior, multiple facets of parenting, the social contexts of parenting and adolescents ’ peers, and the effects of adolescents ’ behavior on these relationships should be taken into consideration. Key words adolescence; friends; HIV/AIDS; parents; sexual risk behavior. In the United States, AIDS is the leading cause of death for adults between the ages of 25 and 44 (Center for Dis