Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability: Concepts and Measurement

165 Pages·2001·3.454 MB·English

by  National Research Council

ADOLESCENT
RISK
AND
VULNERABILITY
CONCEPTS AND MEASUREMENT
Baruch Fischhoff, Elena O. Nightingale, Joah G. Iannotta, Editors
Board on Children, Youth, and Families
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
National Research Council
and
Institute of Medicine
NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Adolescent risk and vulnerability : approaches to setting priorities to
reduce their burden / Baruch Fischhoff, Elena O. Nightingale, Joah G.
Iannotta, Editors.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-309-07620-X (perfectbound)
1. Risk-taking in adolescence (Psychology)—United States—Congresses.
2. Teenagers—United States—Social conditions—Congresses. 3.
Teenagers—Health risk assessment—United States—Congresses. 4.
Youth—Government policy—United States—Congresses. I. Fischhoff,
Baruch, 1946- II. Nightingale, Elena O. III. Iannotta, Joah G.
HV1431 .A633 2001
362.7′083′0973—dc21
2001005256
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Copyright 2001 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Suggested citation: National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2001). Ado-
lescent risk and vulnerability: Concepts amd measurement. Board on Children, Youth, and
Families. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Baruch Fischhoff,
Elena O. Nightingale, and Joah G. Iannotta, Eds. Washington, DC: National Academy
Press.
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BOARD ON CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES
EVAN CHARNEY (Chair), Department of Pediatrics, University of
Massachusetts
JAMES A. BANKS, Center for Multicultural Education, University of
Washington
DONALD COHEN, Child Study Center, Yale University
THOMAS DEWITT, Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati
MARY JANE ENGLAND, Washington Business Group on Health,
Washington, DC
MINDY FULLILOVE, Center for Children’s Environmental Health,
Columbia University
PATRICIA GREENFIELD, Department of Psychology, University of
California, Los Angeles
RUTH T. GROSS, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University
KEVIN GRUMBACH, Department of Family and Community
Medicine, University of California, San Francisco/San Francisco
General Hospital
NEAL HALFON, School of Public Health, University of California,
Los Angeles
MAXINE HAYES, Washington State Department of Health, Olympia,
Washington
MARGARET HEAGARTY, Department of Pediatrics, Harlem Hospital
Center, Columbia University
RENEE JENKINS, Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Howard
University
HARRIET KITZMAN, School of Nursing, University of Rochester
SANDERS KORENMAN, School of Public Affairs, Baruch College
HON. CINDY LEDERMAN, Juvenile Justice Center, Dade County,
Florida
VONNIE McLOYD, Center for Human Growth and Development,
University of Michigan
GARY SANDEFUR, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-
Madison
ELIZABETH SPELKE, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
RUTH STEIN, Department of Pediatrics, Montefiore Medical Center,
Bronx, New York
v
ELEANOR E. MACCOBY (Liaison, Division of Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education), Department of Psychology (Emerita,
Stanford University
WILLIAM ROPER (Liaison, Institute of Medicine), School of Public
Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Elena O. Nightingale, Scholar-in-Residence
Michele D. Kipke, Director
Mary Graham, Associate Director, Dissemination and Communications
Sonja Wolfe, Administrative Associate
Joah G. Iannotta, Research Assistant
vi
Contents
PREFACE ix
1 ADOLESCENT RISK AND VULNERABILITY: OVERVIEW 1
Elena O. Nightingale and Baruch Fischhoff
2 PERCEPTIONS OF RISK AND VULNERABILITY 15
Susan G. Millstein and Bonnie L. Halpern-Felsher
3 VULNERABILITY, RISK, AND PROTECTION 50
Robert William Blum, Clea McNeely, and James Nonnemaker
4 MODELING THE PAYOFFS OF INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE
ADOLESCENT VULNERABILITY 73
Martha R. Burt, Janine M. Zweig, and John Roman
5 ADOLESCENT VULNERABILITY: MEASUREMENT AND
PRIORITY SETTING 109
Baruch Fischhoff and Henry Willis
APPENDIX: WORKSHOP MATERIALS 145
vii

Preface
In September 1997 the Board on Children, Youth, and Families orga-
nized a planning meeting on indicators for the safety and security of adoles-
cents. A number of important ideas developed in this workshop, including
the need to reassess and redefine adolescent vulnerability in order to de-
velop more effective policies and programmatic interventions to safeguard
young people.
Early in 2000, and under the auspices of the Board, the two modera-
tors in the planning meeting, Elena Nightingale, Scholar-in-Residence with
the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, and Baruch Fischhoff, Profes-
sor of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, initiated
the development of a workshop to stimulate thinking about the meaning of
adolescent vulnerability, the methodologies that can be employed to mea-
sure vulnerability and its disparate predisposing risk factors, and the steps
that would advance the work necessary for setting priorities for policies and
practices to reduce the total burden of vulnerability for young people.
A small planning group was formed to develop a workshop on
reconceptualizing adolescent risk and vulnerability. This committee in-
cluded Robert William Blum, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of
Minnesota; Martha R. Burt, Program Director and Principal Research As-
sociate at the Urban Institute; Susan G. Millstein, Professor of Pediatrics at
the University of California at San Francisco; as well as Baruch Fischhoff
and Elena O. Nightingale, who served as co-chairs of the group. The task
ix