She praised the new Add Health data, saying it should help eliminate assumptions that adults make about teenagers, especially minority teens. The second most consistent risk factor is time spent with friends, especially in an unsupervised setting with friends who engage in unhealthy behaviors. When teens engage in self-destructive behaviors, what they do tends to vary according to their race or ethnicity, the survey shows. Minority boys and girls, for example, are more likely to be involved with weapons. Minority youth are also more likely to engage in sex.
Whites are more likely to drink, smoke and attempt suicide.
Let's say I'm a physician counseling a teenager and that teen tells me he lives in a single-parent home. But if that kid tells me he spends his Friday and Saturday nights with kids who drink, that's going to tell me a lot. Single parents often have less time and energy to stay on top of their kids' schoolwork and friends, said Angela Diaz, a physician in adolescent medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York and a single mother of three teenagers. But if they apply themselves, their children will do as well as children in two-parent homes, she said. Diaz's observation echoes the first wave of Add Health data released three years ago by Blum and researchers from the University of North Carolina.