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This study investigated the prevalence of technology-use rules, typical sleep habits, and associations between rules and sleep using the representative 2017-2018 California Health Interview Survey adolescent sample.Adolescents aged 12-17 years completed the California Health Interview Survey, including queries of (1) rules at home regarding times to turn off or put away electronics and (2) school-night bedtime and rise time. Rates of rules and associations between rules and sleep were investigated using descriptive statistics and bivariate and multivariable analyses.Seventy-two percent reported technology-use rules. Rates were comparable across subgroups. Rules and sleep were not significantly associated after adjusting for covariates. Reported time in bed fell below National Sleep Foundation guidelines for 38% of participants.Most adolescents reported technology-use rules at home. Associations between rules and bedtime were mixed, suggesting that further exploration of contextual and developmental factors is needed. Many reported inadequate sleep duration, supporting sleep as a key topic in adolescent health.

Bullying is a persistent problem in schools today, with developmental and socioemotional consequences. Multi-tiered interventions, such as School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SW-PBIS), have been developed to decrease bullying by improving school climate. However, effects of SW-PBIS are stronger in elementary school than middle and high school, and effects are weaker for marginalized student groups. Aligning SW-PBIS with adolescent developmental needs and promoting systems change through youth participatory action research (YPAR) may improve the developmental fit of SW-PBIS for middle and high school students and strengthen its equity impact. In YPAR, youth conduct research on areas that are important to them and take data-driven action to improve their lives. In this paper, we utilize a qualitative instrumental multiple case study approach to identify similarities between YPAR and SW-PBIS and the value added of YPAR to SW-PBIS implementation. The two cases are from school districts chosen for their unique implementation of YPAR with SW-PBIS in middle and high schools. We used a general inductive approach to analyze field notes, documents, and interviews with school and district staff. We found that YPAR enhanced SW-PBIS implementation at the middle and high school level through alignment with adolescent developmental needs. Youth participatory action research also promoted equity through youth-led or youth–adult partnered assessment and data-driven decision-making, providing YPAR with the opportunity to improve the challenges SW-PBIS faces in decreasing disproportionality in academic outcomes for marginalized students. We provided examples to integrate YPAR with SW-PBIS at Tiers One through three.

Community partnerships are vital for the co-production, implementation, and dissemination of practice- and policy-relevant research to advance public psychology. Particularly in "Research 1" universities, the institutional infrastructure, culture, and criteria for faculty advancement are often a mismatch for impactful community-partnered research. Past and current efforts by psychologists and others at the University of California (UC) seek to promote partnerships, infrastructure, and practices for faculty development and advancement that align excellence and impact in scholarship with advancing the public mission of the UC and its campuses. Here, we delineate "partnered" public scholarship and provide an overview of mismatch between this scholarship and university structures. We then describe unique features of the UC and three cases of interdisciplinary partnerships to advance educational equity that illustrate how distinctive campuses and units engaged resources, deployed diverse strategies, and succeeded as well as failed to address challenges related to (a) how partnered scholarship is enacted, (b) supports to sustain the initiatives, and (c) faculty evaluation. We then consider lessons learned, implications, and ethical issues related to public psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Youth-Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is a social justice-focused approach for promoting social change and positive youth development in which youth conduct systematic research and actions to improve their schools and communities. Although YPAR is oriented to generating research for action, with evidence-based recommendations often aimed at influencing adults with power over settings and systems that shape youths' lives, we have little understanding of how YPAR evidence influences the thinking and/or actions of adult policymakers or practitioners. In general, the participatory research field lacks a theoretically informed "use of research evidence" lens, while the use of evidence field lacks consideration of the special case and implications of participatory research. To start to address these gaps, this paper presents a conceptual linkage across these two fields and then provides six illustrative case examples across diverse geographic, policy, and programmatic contexts to demonstrate opportunities and challenges in the use of YPAR evidence for policy and practice. Our illustrative focus here is on U.S. K-12 educational contexts, the most-studied setting in the YPAR literature, but questions examined here are relevant to YPAR and other systems domestically and internationally, including health, educational, and legal systems. HIGHLIGHTS: The use of research evidence (URE) field identifies characteristics of research and conditions that strengthen URE. Youth-led Participatory Action Research is a special case for factors that influence research use. Six case examples across diverse K-12 contexts illustrate facilitators and barriers for YPAR use. We propose next steps for community psychology research and action to promote the study and use of YPAR evidence.

BackgroundYouth participatory action research (YPAR) is an equity-focused approach intended to generate local knowledge and democratise the production of research evidence. Aims/objectivesWe explore the promise and challenges of YPAR to inform education policy decision making. We focus on California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF)’s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) initiative, which requires districts to engage with diverse stakeholders to make decisions. We provide a case example of California’s Stockton Unified School District. Stockton currently uses the Peer Leaders Uniting Students’s YPAR curriculum to inform their LCAP work. Key conclusionsYPAR offers opportunities for new insights, and can be implemented successfully at scale. While Stockton was doing YPAR before LCFF and LCAP existed, they enabled Stockton to expand its YPAR programming, with the goal of using YPAR evidence to provide useful information for educational decision making, policies, and programmes. For example, one YPAR project focused on student tardiness and, using data from multiple sources, proposed lengthening the passing period so that it was physically possible to walk to class in the time permitted. Here, YPAR supports those people most affected by education policy – the students – to have the power to inform decisions that affect them. YPAR can broaden the set of evidence and perspectives that decision makers review to inform policy decisions. We encourage researchers and practitioners to study and create policy structures that support using YPAR to inform policy. We also encourage policy makers to develop more policies that can facilitate the use of YPAR, in education and beyond.

We provide an overview of diverse forms of youth participation, with a focus on youth participatory action research (YPAR) and its synergies with life course intervention research to promote healthier development for young people and across the life span. We analyze why YPAR matters for research, practice, and policies related to the systems and settings in which young people develop. We also illustrate how young people perform YPAR work to improve the developmental responsiveness and equity of school and health systems, including descriptions of an innovative youth-led health center in Rwanda and a long-standing and evolving integration of YPAR into public high schools in the United States. We then briefly consider the adult capacities needed to do this work well, given that YPAR challenges typical youth-adult power relationships and broader assumptions about who can generate expert knowledge. We consider the alignment and potential challenges for integration of life course intervention research as well as YPAR and next steps for research and practice at this intersection.

Young people of color residing in distressed urban contexts face challenges in accessing social capital that supports positive development and the transition to educational and employment opportunities. Youth-serving organizations play potentially important roles for youth participants to access and leverage networks. This ethnographic study draws on qualitative interviews, conducted with adolescents at a youth-serving organization based in East Oakland, California, to examine how network-based social capital is activated and sustained for and by urban Black and Latinx youth. We found that relationships with supportive adult staff at the organization put youth in contact with caring, trusted adults of color outside of their families who serve as role models for them. These adults provide loving accountability to young people, serving as critical forces in distressed and stigmatized communities. We also found that adult staff activate social leverage to garner various current and future educational and professional opportunities for the youth there. These unique opportunities serve to boost young people's current self-esteem and also to prime them to envision positive futures for themselves. Overall, these findings point to the importance of interpersonal pathways embedded within neighborhood institutions in the activation of network-based social capital.

In light of the increasing global population of young people, practitioners and policy makers face formidable challenges in promoting positive youth development and the successful transition to adulthood. Youth participatory research is one promising and rapidly growing approach for generating evidence to inform policy and intervention strategies to best serve youth populations. Here, we consider how developmental science contributes to our understanding about the benefits—for youth, as well as for programs and policies—of engaging youth at different developmental stages in research. We link insights from developmental science to evidence from youth-engaged research to determine where the most fruitful developmental matches may occur. We can maximize the benefits for youth and simultaneously improve research projects when developmental needs, capacities, priorities, and constraints of youth in various stages are thoughtfully considered.

Background: A multitude of empirical evidence documents links between education and health, but this focuses primarily on educational attainment and not on characteristics of the school setting. Little is known about the extent to which aggregate characteristics of the school setting, such as student body demographics, are associated with adult health outcomes. Methods: We use the U.S. nationally representative National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort to statistically assess the association between two different measures of high school student composition (socioeconomic composition, racial/ethnic composition) and two different health outcomes at age 40 (self-rated health and obesity). Results: After adjusting for confounders, high school socioeconomic composition, but not racial/ethnic composition, was weakly associated with both obesity and worse self-rated health at age 40. However, after adding adult educational attainment to the model, only the association between high school socioeconomic composition and obesity remained statistically significant. Conclusions: Future research should explore possible mechanisms and also if findings are similar across other populations and in other school contexts. These results suggest that education policies that seek to break the link between socioeconomic composition and negative outcomes remain important but may have few spillover effects onto health.

There is an array of youth participatory approaches relevant to health equity efforts in community psychology, adolescent health, youth development, and education. While they share some commonalities, they also reflect important distinctions regarding key processes and intended level of impact. Here, we consider the following: (a) youth-led participatory action research (YPAR), (b) youth organizing (YO), (c) youth-led planning, (d) human-centered design, (e) participatory arts, and (f) youth advisory boards. Informed by community psychology theories on empowerment and levels of change and social epidemiology frameworks that focus on the social determinants of health inequities, we aim to promote greater clarity in the conceptualization, implementation, and evaluation of youth participatory approaches; frame the "landscape" of youth participatory approaches and their similarities and differences; present an integrative review of the evidence regarding the impact of youth participatory approaches; and describe several illustrative cases so as to consider more deeply how some youth participatory approaches aim to influence the social determinants of health that lead to the physical embodiment of health inequities. We conclude by identifying areas of future policy- and practice-relevant research for advancing youth participation and health equity.

Parenting quality—a child’s milieu of warmth, responsiveness, and stimulation—promotes a young child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. An unanswered question, however, is about the relative contributions of parenting quality in infancy and in early childhood to disparities in child cognitive and socioemotional development by age five, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Understanding these relationships could inform better targeting of parenting programs in LMICs to yield greater effect size and consistency in improvements in early childhood development. This longitudinal study examines parenting quality and early childhood development among 603 children from poor, rural communities in Mexico who were assessed during infancy (4–18 months) and prekindergarten (3–5 years). Parenting quality (low, moderate, or high) was measured using the HOME Inventory in infancy and the Family Care Indicators (FCI) during prekindergarten. Child development was assessed in infancy using the Extended Ages and Stages Questionnaire (EASQ) and the ASQ Socioemotional scale, and during prekindergarten with the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities. We found that parenting quality measures above the 25th percentile during infancy and prekindergarten were independently and significantly associated with a 0.26–0.30 SD increase in McCarthy scores at ages 3–5 years in adjusted analyses. Parental warmth and responsiveness in infancy were significant predictors of child development at ages 3–5 years, but parental stimulating practices and availability of learning materials in the home were not. Conversely, during the prekindergarten period, parental stimulating practices were significant predictors of concurrent child development. Our findings support the importance parenting quality throughout early childhood, and that the effect of aspects of parenting may vary from infancy to prekindergarten. Programs targeting parents of young children should tailor their curriculum to the specific ages of the targeted children.

The prevalence and impact of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenomenon a matter of vital importance. Prior research has examined associations between problematic patterns of parents' emotion reactivity and regulation and child maltreatment and maltreatment risk. However, the strength and specificity of these relationships is not yet clear. To address this, we conducted a systematic literature search of four databases from inception through February 2021 to identify studies that reported these relationships. Our resulting meta-analysis of maltreatment involved parents of children who are up to 18 years of age (k = 46, encompassing 6669 parents). Our focus was the magnitude of the difference in levels of emotion reactivity and regulation between parents who maltreat or are at risk of maltreating and parents who do not maltreat their children or are not at risk of maltreating their children. As expected, results from meta-analyses using robust variance estimation indicated significantly higher problems with reactivity and regulation in maltreating parents / parents at risk (r = 0.40, k = 140; 95% CI [0.34, 0.45]), indicating that maltreating / at risk parents were more likely to have overall worse measures of reactivity and regulation. In comparison to non-maltreating parents, maltreating / at risk parents experience more negative emotions, display more negative emotion behavior, and are more dysregulated. These effects were fairly stable with little to no remaining heterogeneity. The current review concludes with a theoretical framework outlining the role of emotion reactivity and regulation in multiple risk factors of maltreatment, aiming to guide future study in this area.

Adolescent sleep deprivation is a pressing public health issue in the United States as well as other countries. The contexts of adolescents’ lives are changing rapidly, but little is known about the factors that adolescents themselves believe affect their sleep. This study uses a social-ecological framework to investigate multiple levels of perceived influence on sleep patterns of urban adolescents. Data were drawn from interviews and surveys conducted in three California public high schools. Most participants identified homework as their primary barrier to sleep, particularly those engaged in procrastinating, multitasking, or those with extracurricular demands. Results indicate that the home context has important implications for adolescent sleep, including noise, household rules, and perceived parent values. These findings identify important areas for future research and intervention, particularly regarding the roles of parents.

This meta-analysis of 20 studies (including a total of 26,302 children) examined effects of political violence exposure for Jewish Israeli, Arab Israeli and Palestinian youth from 12 years of research in the Middle East conflict. The meta-analysis found a small relation between exposure and all symptoms examined, namely posttraumatic, behavioral and emotional symptoms, among all children. The relation between exposure and posttraumatic or emotional symptoms was significantly higher than that between exposure and behavioral symptoms. The relation between proximity to exposure and symptoms was significantly stronger than that for direct exposure, which was significantly stronger than that for media exposure. Implications of these findings extend beyond the geographic borders of this particular conflict. Millions of children worldwide are affected by armed conflict, war and terrorism and understanding the toll on children is of theoretical, clinical and practical import.

Trans women face numerous structural barriers to health due to discrimination. Housing instability is an important structural determinant of poor health outcomes among trans women. The purpose of this study was to determine if experiences of intersectional anti-trans and racial discrimination are associated with poor housing outcomes among trans women in the San Francisco Bay Area. A secondary analysis of baseline data from the Trans *National study (n = 629) at the San Francisco Department of Public Health (2016&ndash, 2018) was conducted. Multivariable logistic regression was used to analyze the association between discrimination as an ordered categorical variable (zero, one to two, or three or more experiences) and housing status adjusting for age, years lived in the Bay Area, and gender identity. We found that the odds of housing instability increased by 1.25 for every categorical unit increase (1&ndash, 2, or 3+) in reported experiences of intersectional (both anti-trans and racial) discrimination for trans women (95% CI = 1.01&ndash, 1.54, p-value &lt, 0.05). Intersectional anti-trans and racial discrimination is associated with increased housing instability among trans women, giving some insight that policies and programs are needed to identify and address racism and anti-trans stigma towards trans women. Efforts to address intersectional discrimination may positively impact housing stability, with potential for ancillary effects on increasing the health and wellness of trans women who face multiple disparities.

The many adverse effects of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenomenon a matter of vital importance. Although the relationship between maltreatment and problematic emotion reactivity and regulation has been studied, the strength and specificity of these associations are not yet clear. We examine the magnitude of the maltreatment-child-emotion reactivity/regulation link. Studies with substantiated maltreatment involving children aged up to 18 were included, along with a smaller number of longitudinal studies (58 papers reviewed, encompassing more than 11,900 children). In comparison to nonmaltreated children, maltreated children experience more negative emotions, behave in a manner indicative of more negative emotion, and display emotion dysregulation. We outline several theoretical implications of our results.

This article examines the experiences of 25 youth of color living in East Oakland, California. Building on empirical studies examining violence prevention efforts on the behalf of and among youth and using an ethnographic approach, this study samples young people, with varying levels of education, income, and motivation for involvement, attending the same youth-serving organization in East Oakland. The findings offer a frame of “violence management strategies” for the active ways in which youth strategically avoid unsafe spaces and people and seek out safe spaces and people on a daily basis within their neighborhoods marked by high rates of crime, violence, and physical disorder. These findings lift up youth as experts of their own neighborhoods. The implications of these findings for adolescent research, practice, and policy are discussed.

The exploration of social networking sites (SNS) in promoting social change efforts offers great potential within the field of community psychology. Online communities on SNS provide opportunities for bridging across groups, thus fostering the exchange of novel ideas and practices. Currently, there have only been limited efforts to examine SNS within the context of youth-led efforts. To explore the potential of SNS to facilitate the diffusion of social justice efforts between distinct youth groups, we linked three school-based youth-led participatory action research projects involving 54 high school students through a SNS. This study offers an innovative methodological approach and framework, utilizing social network analysis and strategic sampling of key student informants to investigate what individual behaviors and online network features predict student adoption of social change efforts. Findings highlight prospective facilitators and barriers to diffusion processes within a youth-led online network, as well as key constructs that may inform future research. We conclude by providing suggestions for scholars and practitioners interested in examining how SNS can be used to enhance the diffusion of social justice strategies, youth-led engagement efforts, and large-scale civic organizing.

Purpose Rapid advances in technology create opportunities for adolescents to influence practice and policy in health and other domains. Technology can support the scaling of Youth-Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR), in which adolescents conduct research to improve issues that affect them. We present the first known published systematic review of the use of technology to scale YPAR. Methods A systematic review of the empirical literature was conducted from 2000 to 2018 using databases PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, and PubMed. The review included peer-reviewed articles of YPAR studies involving adolescents (aged 10–19 years) using technology for scaling. Appraisal of papers included the role of technology and consistency with YPAR principles. Results Nine peer-reviewed YPAR publications focusing on a range of health issues with adolescents aged 11–19 years were identified. Technology included Facebook (most common), Twitter, Instagram, Skype, e-mail, blogs, and personalized mapping applications. Overall, technology was primarily used for adolescent participants to gather data. The appraisal revealed the complexities inherent in conducting YPAR using technology across multiple sites, with different adults in supportive roles and varying levels of opportunities for adolescent engagement. Conclusions This review provides insights at the intersection of youth-led research and technology, highlighting opportunities in a changing technological landscape and the challenges of YPAR at scale.

Over the last two decades, there has been attention to promoting meaningful youth “engagement,” “participation” and “voice” in adolescent health [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. UN and other investments in reports, network-building, and meetings like the Bali Global Youth forum raised the visibility of youth engagement as a priority, sharing principles, examples, and challenges across diverse contexts [ [2] , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Recently, the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing provided an overview of youth engagement and health, including barriers to meaningful engagement [ [15] ]. Despite extensive theoretical, ethical, and practice work on youth engagement, particularly in the domain of sexual/reproductive health, we need more systematic evidence about fundamental process and outcome questions. Rigorous practice-based evidence [ [16] ], enabled by sustained research-practice partnerships [ [17] ], is vital for generating a knowledge base to guide the field. Here, we seek to provide further clarity in this underdeveloped research area, highlighting distinctions among youth participation approaches, and propose a research agenda moving forward.

Administrators and teachers face changes prompted by the shift to Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) offers a promising approach to supporting students in mastering new content standards, while also offering experiences that promote their sociopolitical development and civic agency. In YPAR, students work with a teacher or other adult ally to critically reflect upon the social and political forces influencing their lives, identify a pressing problem or school need, study it through systematic research, and then develop an action plan to raise awareness or change a policy. Because of its emphasis on educational relevance, critical consciousness, and social justice, YPAR is an especially promising strategy with young people who experience racism or other forms of marginalization in school. In this article we describe the YPAR cycle, make an argument for how it creates opportunities for academic learning, sociopolitical development, and youth leadership, and provide examples of what this might look like in practice. YPAR offers a curricular approach that addresses academic objectives while also supporting democratic education and the sociopolitical development of students.

This article reviews three emergent measures of critical consciousness (CC), which refers to marginalized or oppressed people’s critical reflection on oppressive social, economic, or political conditions, the motivation to address perceived injustice, and action taken to counter such injustice in a liberatory manner (Freire in Education for critical consciousness. Continuum, New York, 1973; Watts et al. in New Dir Child Adolesc Dev 134:43–57, 2011). Until recently, no instruments were explicitly designed to measure CC, resulting in fragmented approaches to its conceptualization and measurement. The concurrent development and validation of three measures—the Measure of Adolescent Critical Consciousness (McWhirter and McWhirter 2016), the Critical Consciousness Inventory (Thomas et al. in J Res Adolesc 24(3):485–496, 2014), and the Critical Consciousness Scale (Diemer et al. in press)—represents a significant scholarly advance. We argue that these new measures provide a ‘conceptual anchor’ for subsequent CC inquiry, useful for both quantitative and qualitative studies. We also recommend mixed-methods approaches to research aimed at understanding how CC develops and operates. We conclude by raising a number of questions to guide future research, the answers to which will further refine scholars’ conceptualization and measurement of CC.

Most adolescents face numerous obstacles to good sleep, which may undermine healthy development. In this study, we used latent class analysis and identified four categories of sleep barriers in a diverse sample of 553 urban youth (57% female). The majority profile, School/Screens Barriers, reported the most homework and extracurricular barriers, along with high screen time. The Home/Screens Barriers class (i.e., high environmental noise, light, screen use) and the High/Social Barriers class (i.e., high barriers across domains, particularly social) reported the poorest sleep quality and highest depressive/anxiety symptoms. The Minimal Barriers class-predominately male, with low depressive/anxiety symptoms-reported more sleep per night. We discuss implications of our findings for targeting interventions to address poor adolescent sleep among specific clusters of students.

Female Sex Workers are a core population in the HIV epidemic, and interventions such as conditional cash transfers (CCTs), effective in other health domains, are a promising new approach to reduce the spread of HIV. Here we investigate how a population of Tanzanian female sex workers, though constrained in many ways, experience and use their power in the context of a CCT intervention that incentivizes safe sex. We analyzed 20 qualitative in-depth interviews with female sex workers enrolled in a randomized-controlled CCT program, the RESPECT II pilot, and found that while such women have limited choices, they do have substantial power over their work logistics that they leveraged to meet the conditions of the CCT and receive the cash award. It was through these decisions over work logistics, such as reducing the number of workdays and clients, that the CCT intervention had its greatest impact on modifying female sex workers' behavior.

PurposeTo present normative values of mean sleep duration from adolescence through young adulthood (ages 13-32 years), prevalence of short (10 hours) sleep durations, and differences in each by sex and race/ethnicity.MethodsMean sleep duration and prevalence of extremely short and long sleep were estimated using data from the United States National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, Waves 1-4 (N = 15,701).ResultsSleep duration showed age-related trends, with decreases across the adolescent period from 8.5 hours per night at age 13 years to 7.3 hours at age 18 years, an increase through the emerging adulthood period to 8.5 hours at age 22, and a gradual decline across early adulthood to 7.7 hours at age 32 years. Prevalence of extremely long and short sleep followed similar developmental trends. Adolescent girls reported lower mean sleep duration than did boys, but women reported longer average sleep duration than did men from age 19 years onward. Short sleep duration was most common among African-Americans at all ages. Long sleep was most common among African-Americans in adolescence and emerging adulthood and among Hispanics in early adulthood.ConclusionsSleep duration is developmentally patterned from adolescence through early adulthood. Mean and extreme sleep durations vary systematically by sex and race/ethnicity as well as age. These normative data on sleep duration will inform studies of the role of sleep in the etiology of a wide range of health conditions affecting adolescents and young adults.

Little is known about why bisexual people use tobacco at higher rates than any other sexual identity group. Non-binary sexualities, such as bisexuality, exist within the socially constructed borderland between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Exploration of the everyday smoking contexts and practices of bisexual individuals may reveal unique mechanisms driving tobacco use. We employed a novel mixed method, integrating real-time, smartphone-administered surveys of (non)smoking situations, location tracking, spatial visualization of participant data, and subsequent map-led interviews. Participants (n = 17; ages 18–26, California) identified as bisexual, pansexual, and/or queer. Most were cisgender women. Survey smoking patterns and situational predictors were similar to other young adults’. However, interviews revealed unique roles of tobacco use in participants’ navigation of differently sexualized spaces in everyday life: 1) stepping away from uncomfortable situations related to bisexual identity; 2) facilitating belonging to LGBTQ+ community; and 3) recovering from bisexual identity perception management. Similar studies can examine the place-embedded practices and spatio-temporal patterns of other substance use and other stigmatized identity experiences.

This multi-method study examines tensions in the practice of youth-led participatory research (YPAR) in urban high schools among 15 semester-cohorts. Student participants in the present study were 77 ethnically diverse youth from four high schools in a major metropolitan school district. Data were gathered using systematic classroom observations, interviews with teachers and students involved in the projects, and participant observation. The two most commonly-constrained phases of the YPAR project were issue selection and action steps. A central tension in the issue selection phase for projects enacted across multiple semester cohorts was the tension between original inquiry and "traction:" Sticking with the same topic enabled sustained building of strategic alliances and expertise for making change, but limited the incoming cohort's power to define the problem to be addressed. In further analyses, we identified processes that promoted student power despite continuity-related constraints-teachers' framing and buy-in strategies, "micro-power" compensation, and alignment of students' interests with the prior cohort-as well as constraints in other phases of the projects. This study's findings regarding the promotion of youth power in the face of constraints advance the integration of theory and practice in youth-led research and have implications for participatory research more broadly.

Mothers' feeding practices are associated with their children's weight status, but little is known about the associations between fathers' feeding practices and children's weight status. Moreover, there is a dearth of research on Latino fathers' feeding practices and children's weight status, even though Latino children suffer some of the highest obesity rates in the U.S. We examined the associations between fathers' feeding practices and child weight status, conditional on mothers' feeding practices, within 174 Mexican American families with children aged 8-10 years. Parents completed the Parental Feeding Practices Questionnaire, which consists of four subscales: positive involvement in child eating, pressure to eat, use of food to control behavior, and restriction of amount of food. To assess child weight status, body mass index (BMI) was calculated and converted to age- and gender-specific percentile scores (BMI z-score). We fit four sets of regression models, one set for each of the four parental feeding practices subscales, with child BMI z-score as the outcome variable. Fathers' pressure to eat (b=-0.20, p=0.04; 95% CI:-0.39,-0.01) and use of food to control behavior (b=-0.36, p=0.02; 95% CI:-0.65,-0.07) were associated with lower child BMI z-score, and restriction of amount of food (b=0.56, p&nbsp

This article describes the implementation process of a nationwide project to enhance young people's participation and active citizenship in the context of Portugal's economic recession. This project used an innovative Positive Youth Development approach that engaged Portuguese youth (aged 11-18 years) through social media tools to facilitate their civic engagement and development. Participants from all over the country were empowered (1) to design and conduct research activities on topics of their choice and about their life contexts and (2) to create ways to improve youth civic participation in their communities, while developing supportive interactions with adults and peers. Overall, youth were engaged in their activities, felt their voices were heard, and felt that they were viewed as experts of their own well-being and living contexts. Youth research actions and preliminary findings were then compiled in a set of recommendations that was formally received by a high commissioner of the Ministry of Health. The article concludes with a discussion of the next steps for the project and its limitations so far. Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian; Portuguese Society for Health Psychology and Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) is an approach to scientific inquiry and social change grounded in principles of equity that engages young people in identifying problems relevant to their own lives, conducting research to understand the problems, and advocating for changes based on research evidence. This chapter provides an introduction to YPAR followed by consideration of the (a) developmental relevance of YPAR for marginalized youth, (b) implications of YPAR for developmental science research on inequities experienced by youth, and (c) potential opportunities and impact of YPAR for improving key developmental settings such as schools and youth-serving organizations. Resources for conducting YPAR projects are discussed, as well as the need for potential integration of YPAR and other participatory approaches to engaging youth and their expertise-at a significant enough scale to have a meaningful impact on policies and practices that affect youth development.

Youth-led Participatory Action Research (YPAR)—in which young people conduct research aimed at improving problems in their schools and communities—is increasing in public health, youth development, and education. We report on the development and psychometric testing of the YPAR Process Template (YPT)—to assess the quality of key YPAR processes in a systematic, flexible manner. Pairs of raters independently coded 40 live and videotaped observations. All scales achieved good to excellent interrater reliability with the exception of the power sharing over major decisions scale, which had interrater reliability in the acceptable range. This instrument can be useful for a range of settings practicing YPAR and similar youth empowerment programs. We further report findings generated by YPT assessments that demonstrate that power sharing was a robust predictor of observed youth engagement in the YPAR classes after controlling for the classes’ baseline level of engagement.

Prior research highlights the mismatch between adolescents' growing capacities for autonomy and the limited opportunities for influence in U.S. secondary schools. Youth-led participatory research (YPAR), an approach in which young people research and advocate for change on problems of concern to them, could increase students' autonomy in secondary schools. This qualitative study of YPAR examined whether and how the intervention meaningfully affected the interactions and roles of students and adults in two distinctive urban high school settings, identifying concepts for further empirical investigation. Results suggested that YPAR enabled processes of student professionalization that led to novel student-adult “collegial” interactions, expansion of domains of student influence, and diversification of students with opportunities to influence policies and practices across these two schools.

Purpose This clinic- and community-based study of young women investigated the relationship between previous sexual abuse and early pregnancy, examining the effect of the developmental period in which sexual abuse occurred and type of sexual abuse, while also providing methodological advances in the assessment of distinctive sexual abuse and its sequelae. Methods Secondary data analysis using Cox proportional hazards models was conducted to determine the association between sexual abuse in childhood, in adolescence, or both, and risk of early pregnancy among 1,790 young women. In addition, this study examined the type of sexual abuse that occurred during each period. Results As compared with women with no history of sexual abuse, women who experienced sexual abuse only in childhood had a 20% greater hazard of pregnancy; women who experienced sexual abuse only in adolescence had a 30% greater hazard of pregnancy; and women who experienced sexual abuse in both childhood and adolescence had an 80% greater hazard of pregnancy. Across these periods, attempted rape and rape were associated with an increased hazard of pregnancy. The association between sexual abuse and pregnancy was mediated by age at first intercourse and moderated by a woman's education level. Conclusion This study provides evidence that both the developmental timing and the type of sexual abuse contributes to an increased risk for early pregnancy. The study findings indicate that sexual abuse leads to an earlier age of first sexual intercourse, which in turn increases the likelihood of an early pregnancy. Women with higher educational attainment are less likely to experience early pregnancy as a result of abuse.

Background Depression is a major cause of disability, particularly among women; poverty heightens the risk for depression. Beyond its direct effects, maternal depression can harm children’s health and development. This study aimed to assess the effects of a large-scale anti-poverty programme in Mexico (Oportunidades) on maternal depressive symptoms. Methods In 2003, 5050 women living in rural communities who had participated in Oportunidades since its inception were assessed and compared with a group of 1293 women from matched communities, whose families had received no exposure to Oportunidades at the time of assessment but were later enrolled. Self-reported depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Ordinary least squares regressions were used to evaluate the treatment effect of programme participation on depression while adjusting for covariates and clustering at the community level. Results Women in the treatment group had lower depressive symptoms than those in the comparison group (unadjusted mean CES-D scores: 16.9 ± 9.8 vs 18.6 ± 10.2). In multivariable analyses, programme participation was associated with lower depression whilst controlling for maternal age, education and household demographic, ethnicity and socio-economic variables [β = −1.7 points, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) −2.46 to −0.96, P

Although there are an increasing number of youth development programs that aim to empower young people, there is a dearth of psychometrically sound measures that can be used to assess flexible youth-led organizing and participatory research approaches that tackle a wide range of social and community problems. This study developed and tested measures of psychological empowerment (PE) and self-efficacy for research and action among a sample of 439 ethnically diverse adolescents primarily recruited from public high schools in an urban center. Items for the PE measure were generated through an iterative combination of conducting formative research with our target population while also drawing on existing theory and measures in the field. We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of the PE measure, testing four factors: adolescents’ motivation to influence their school and community settings; participatory behavior; sociopolitical skills; and perceived control. Psychometric analyses for the PE scales and their correlation with adolescents’ report of self-esteem, academic achievement, caring relationships with adults at school, and social support from peers are reported; the implications of the present study for research and practice in the youth development and adolescent psychology field are considered.

Understanding Latino youths' sexual values is key to informing HIV prevention efforts. Few studies have examined associations between culturally based sexual values and behaviors among Latinos.A sample of 839 sexually active Latinos aged 16-22 residing in San Francisco were interviewed in 2003-2006. Multiple regression and multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine associations between sexual values and behaviors, while adjusting for language use (a proxy for acculturation) and other covariates.The importance attached to female virginity was negatively associated with the number of sexual partners women had had in their lifetime (odds ratio, 0.8) and in the past year (0.9), and was positively associated with women's nonuse of condoms, rather than consistent use, during the first month of their current relationships (1.8). For men, the importance of satisfying sexual needs increased with the numbers of lifetime and recent sexual partners (1.4 and 1.1, respectively), and with inconsistent condom use in the first month of their relationships (1.9). Comfort with sexual communication was positively associated with inconsistent use or nonuse of condoms in the last month of both men's and women's current relationships (2.0-2.2). For women, considering satisfaction of sexual needs important was associated with more sexual partners only among those who attached little value to female virginity.It is important to integrate themes of virginity and sexual desire into intervention curricula so youth can better understand how these sexual norms influence their developing sexual identities and behaviors.

This study examines the shape of social class gradients for substance use among Mexican adolescents. Substance use and objective and subjective indicators of social class were assessed in house-to-house surveys conducted with 7614 Mexican adolescents in 2004. The sample was designed to be representative of the poorest urban communities in seven Mexican states. The prevalence of current smoking was 16.8%, alcohol consumption was 30.2%, and drug use was 4.6%. Multiple logistic regressions are used to estimate the associations of objective indicators of socioeconomic status (SES) and subjective social status (SSS)-at both community and societal levels-and smoking, alcohol and drug use. Adolescents who perceived themselves as higher in social status in reference to their local community reported more smoking and drinking. Our findings were similar when we used objective measures of SES, such as maternal education and total monthly household expenditures per person. In contrast, adolescents who perceived that they had high social standing in reference to Mexican society as a whole were less likely to report being current smokers and drinkers. We found no significant association between social status and drug use. Research into how adolescents perceive themselves in reference to their peer communities may help strengthen programs and policies aimed at promoting health in vulnerable adolescent populations.

Purpose We investigated the contributions of individual, family, and community-level factors for explaining alcohol use and smoking among rural Mexican adolescents. Methods As part of a national survey, 3922 adolescents and their mothers from 333 poor, rural communities in seven Mexican states provided cross-sectional data on family-level, socioeconomic, and psychosocial factors, and individual-level data on substance use and psychological symptoms. Community standard of living was also assessed. Results Generalized linear models adjusted for sampling design indicated that adolescents' use of alcohol was associated with being male, older, employment, and having a mother who used alcohol. Being from an indigenous family living in a majority-indigenous community was associated with less alcohol use. Family income, family size, and community standard of living were not directly associated with adolescents' alcohol use. Current smoking was associated with being male, older, and more anxious, having a mother who smoked, and having a mother with higher educational attainment. Further analyses indicated patterns in which adolescents' alcohol use was moderated by gender and ethnicity. Conclusions Beyond the contribution of male gender and age as risk factors, maternal substance use uniquely explained variability in alcohol and cigarette use among Mexican adolescents from rural communities. Indigenous ethnicity and living in majority-indigenous community settings appeared to confer protective benefits with respect to alcohol. These findings extend prior research in Mexico and in other countries that identify the combined importance of developmental contexts and individual-level factors for adolescent health.

Objective: To test the contribution of maternal depression during late infancy to physical activity in children 5 years later. Method: Children (n = 168) from very low-income households in semiurban Mexico were assessed as toddlers (15 months, Time 1) and at pre-school age (4- 6 years, Time 2). Child low activity level (

This article discusses the dissemination of a process of youth-led participatory research in urban secondary schools within the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation (ISF) developed in collaboration with the CDC and its university partners (Wandersman et al. American Journal of Community Psychology, 41(3-4) 2008). The focus here is on the development of the Prevention Support System with respect to general and innovation-specific capacity building. The specific process under study involves youth-led needs assessment and research to inform the planning of prevention programs and policies to address students' health and developmental needs. The article first briefly describes the youth-led research process, its potential benefits, and a case example in two urban secondary schools. It then describes challenges and responses in providing support for the diffusion of this model in 6 secondary schools. The settings are urban public schools with a majority of students of color from diverse ethnic groups: Asian-American, Latino, and African-American. This project constitutes a collaborative partnership with a university school of public health and community-based organizations (CBOs) to build capacity for long-term, sustainable implementation of this innovative process within the local school system. The perspectives of the university-based researcher and the CBO partners on the development and effectiveness of the Prevention Support System are presented.

Adolescents' perceived connection to school has been consistently associated with positive development across a range of domains, with strongest evidence for the quality of student-adult relationships in school as a core factor. Using a purposive sample of 32 high seniors from 9 urban schools who had participated in a quantitative study 5 years prior, this multimethod study examines the experiences that promote or undermine these adolescents' feelings of connection to school— in particular, their feelings of respect for and caring by teachers, and their sense of belonging to their schools. Adolescents in our sample respected teachers with engaging instructional styles and a commitment to student learning; most viewed even small efforts by teachers to get to know them as evidence of caring. Further in-depth analysis of 5 participant cases using interview data and quantitative data from middle and high school provides a contextualized view of adolescents' trajectories of connection to school over time, and highlights the differentiated profiles of belonging to school and affective relationships with teachers reported by these youth. Theoretical and methodological implications for the study and promotion of perceived school connection are discussed.

Youth-led participatory action research (YPAR) is an approach to scientific inquiry and social change grounded in principles of equity that engages young people in identifying problems relevant to their own lives, conducting research to understand the problems, and advocating for changes based on research evidence. This chapter provides an introduction to YPAR followed by consideration of the (a) developmental relevance of YPAR for marginalized youth, (b) implications of YPAR for developmental science research on inequities experienced by youth, and (c) potential opportunities and impact of YPAR for improving key developmental settings such as schools and youth-serving organizations. Resources for conducting YPAR projects are discussed, as well as the need for potential integration of YPAR and other participatory approaches to engaging youth and their expertise-at a significant enough scale to have a meaningful impact on policies and practices that affect youth development.

This review provides a comprehensive investigation of the pattern and strength of findings in the literature regarding the environmental moderators of the relationship between exposure to community violence and mental health among children and adolescents. Twenty-nine studies met criteria for inclusion in our analysis of family, school, and community variables as moderators. Dependent variables included internalizing (e.g., anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder) and externalizing symptoms (e.g., aggression, substance use). Effect sizes for the interactions of exposure to violence and potential moderators were summarized by their patterns of protective processes. The majority of studies in the literature examined family characteristics as moderators of the exposure to violence-symptom relationship, rather than school- or community-level factors. Our results indicated more consistent patterns for (a) close family relationships and social support for internalizing symptoms and (b) close family relationships for externalizing symptoms. Overall, the most common type of protective pattern was protective-stabilizing, in which youth with higher levels of the environmental attribute demonstrate relative stability in mental health despite exposure to violence. We found no consistent evidence that parental monitoring-a dimension inversely associated with exposure to violence in prior studies-moderated the relationship between exposure to violence and symptoms. The study emphasizes the importance of strengthening family support for young people's exposure to community violence; more research is needed to provide a solid evidence base for the role of school and community-level protective factors for youth exposed to violence.

This longitudinal school-based study examined school connection and family support as protective factors for adolescent mental health in the context of exposure to violence. After controlling for seventh grade functioning, recent exposure to violence uniquely predicted worsening of functioning from seventh to eighth grade across multiple self- and teacher-reported measures including self-reported internalizing symptoms, self-reported aggression, and teacher-reported competencies. Adolescents who felt more connected to school showed decreased psychological problems from seventh to eighth grade. Perceived school connection, however, did not moderate the relationship between exposure to violence and psychological functioning. Findings highlighted family support as a moderator of the relationship between exposure to violence and adolescent mental health. Implications for interventions to promote healthier adolescent functioning under stress are discussed.