Original articleFactors that influence adolescent reports of counseling by physicians on risky behavior
Section snippets
Sample
The sample of adolescents was a sub-sample from a random-digit-dial survey of parents of low-income children (aged 1–18 years) conducted between December 2002 and March of 2003. Telephone numbers were drawn randomly from numbers in low-income exchanges (mean household income equal to or less than $35,000) in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, New York. Using random-digit-dial methods, households were contacted and then screened for income and insurance eligibility. To be eligible for
Demographic characteristics
Table 1 shows that our sample was approximately evenly divided between younger and older adolescents (49% vs. 51%) and between male and female adolescents (53% vs. 47%). There were no significant differences between younger and older adolescents with respect to race (48% were Hispanic, 44% were black, non-Hispanic, and 8% were another race/ethnicity), education of the parent (41% had parents with less than a high school education and 59% had parents with more than a high school education),
Discussion
This study found a low prevalence of counseling by doctors or health care providers to low-income adolescent youth in New York City, especially when considering either the GAPS requirements for annual screening and counseling or the levels of risky behavior reported by the population. Having a risk factor was strongly associated with receiving counseling about that risk factor, in both bivariate and multivariate models, for most risk factors. Despite this relationship, there were many
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by grants from the William T. Grant Foundation and the Altman Foundation. We are thankful to Tamar Bauer, J.D. for organizing a New York Child Health Forum meeting to explore policy issues and for her helpful comments on the findings; Jennifer Stuber, Ph.D., Rachel Cooper, M.A., Peter G. Szilagyi, M.D., M.P.H. and his colleagues for their contribution to the development of the survey instrument; and Schulman, Ronca, and Bucuvalas, Inc for their assistance with data
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