The effects of school poverty on adolescents' sexual health knowledge

Robert Atkins, Michael J. Sulik, Daniel Hart, Cynthia Ayres, Nichole Read

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Using National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data, hierarchical linear modeling was conducted to estimate the association of school poverty concentration to the sexual health knowledge of 6,718 adolescents. Controlling for individual socio-economic status, school poverty had modest negative effects on sexual health knowledge. Although not directly associated with sexual health knowledge, after controlling for demographic characteristics, school poverty interactions showed that sexual health knowledge was associated with higher grade point average (GPA) and age. The combination of low GPA and high-levels of school poverty was especially detrimental for students' sexual health knowledge. There are differences in the sexual health knowledge of adolescents attending low poverty and high poverty schools that can be attributed to the school environment.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)231-241
Number of pages11
JournalResearch in Nursing and Health
Volume35
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2012

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Nursing

Keywords

  • Adolescents
  • School poverty
  • Sexual health knowledge

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