The other interesting racial difference was the link between family relationship quality and the timing of sexual debut.
We found that improvement in family relationship quality between ages 12 and 15 was linked with reductions in HRSB at age 22 by way of delayed sexual activity at age 17 for European Americans, but not for African Americans.
This racial difference may be attributed to differences in what is considered normative behavior in each community.
Results from several studies indicate that African American youths may engage in sexual intercourse at earlier ages than European American youths. According to the CDC’s 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey of a nationally representative sample of youths enrolled in public and private high schools, African American youths were significantly more likely than European American youths to have had sexual intercourse at each grade level between grades 9 and 12
(CDC 2009).
In another study conducted on a populationbased sample of Los Angeles County in the early 1990s, African American boys began engaging in intercourse around
age 15, whereas the sexual debut of African American girls and European American girls and boys occurred roughly 1.5 years later (Upchurch et al. 1998).Our sample was slightly older at age of sexual debut, but followed a similar trend: at age 17, 39 % of European American youth and 59 % of African American youth had engaged in sexual intercourse, increasing to 69 and 77 %, respectively, at age 18.
If sexual activity was considered normative during mid-adolescence in our African American subsample, parents may not have felt as strongly about preventing sexual debut and instead chose to target other behaviors that prevent the spread of STIs and HIV, such as limiting the number of partners, consistent condom
use, and regular tests for disease.
Positive parent–youth relationships may have facilitated communication about these topics, and this closeness may have prompted youths to engage
in less HRSB.