@article{e0b9b66b660743c4a40ea0c1ea854f85,
title = "Long-term consequences of early sexual initiation on young adult health: A causal inference approach",
abstract = "Although early sexual initiation has been linked to negative outcomes, it is unknown whether these effects are causal. In this study, we use propensity score methods to estimate the causal effect of early sexual initiation on young adult sexual risk behaviors and health outcomes using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We found that early sexual initiation predicted having two or more partners (for both males and females) and having a sexually transmitted infection in the past year (females only) but did not predict depressive symptoms in the past week (for either gender). These results underscore the importance of continued programmatic efforts to delay age of sexual initiation, particularly for females.",
author = "Kugler, \{Kari C.\} and Vasilenko, \{Sara A.\} and Butera, \{Nicole M.\} and Coffman, \{Donna L.\}",
note = "Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. This research and the investigators were funded by National Institutes of Health grants P50-DA010075, P50-DA039898, KL2-TR000126, R03-HD079711, and K01-ES025437. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2015.",
year = "2017",
month = may,
doi = "10.1177/0272431615620666",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "37",
pages = "662--676",
journal = "Journal of Early Adolescence",
issn = "0272-4316",
publisher = "SAGE Publications Inc.",
number = "5",
}