Goals and Objectives

Goals and Objectives of the Study

We hope to learn more about the major health issues facing adolescents and young adults today. Because most of these issues are related to activities that people choose to engage in such as smoking or drinking, we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to learn more about why some people choose to do these things and others do not. Armed with this knowledge, innovative new education and intervention programs will be developed to improve the health and well-being of adolescents and young adults.

Some important goals of our study include:

Identifying factors, especially psychological and social ones, that distinguish people who make different types of decisions about their health-related behaviors.
Gaining a better understanding of how different health behaviors are related to each other - for example, whether a certain kind of person (e.g., someone with a "risky" personality) both drinks and smokes, or whether one behavior causes the other. Designing effective strategies to encourage healthy behaviors ultimately depends on finding answers to questions like this.
Describing patterns of change in health behaviors from adolescence into adulthood, and determining whether these patterns are similar for men and women and for people of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Examining the consequences of engaging in risky health behaviors during adolescence on lifestyles and adjustment in adulthood. Although many people assume that risk-taking is all bad, we believe that people also acquire important skills and knowledge from taking certain kinds of risks. Consequently, one of our goals is to gain a better understanding of the pro's and con's of risk-taking during adolescence.