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Health Education Research, Vol. 18, No. 4, 461-476, August 2003
© 2003 Oxford University Press

Development of a youth survey to measure risk behaviors, attitudes and assets: examining multiple influences

B. Reininger, A. E. Evans*,1, S. F. Griffin1, R. F. Valois1, M. L. Vincent1, D. Parra-Medina1, D. J. Taylor1 and K. J. Zullig1

School of Public Health, Regional Campus at Brownsville, Brownsville, University of Texas–Houston, TX 78520, and 1 Department of Health Promotion, Education and Behavior, Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA

*To whom correspondence should be addressed E-mail: evansae{at}gwm.sc.edu

Currently, most surveys assessing adolescent health concerns focus primarily on risk behaviors and negative influences rather than positive influences such as assets. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and validation of the Adolescent Health Attitude and Behavior Survey (AHABS). This instrument was developed to measure the prevalence of youth health risk behaviors, attitudes towards adolescent sexual behavior and youth assets in a statewide evaluation effort. The questionnaire was completed by 4368 public high school students in Grades 9–12. Content validity was established through an extensive review of literature, a group process and factor analyses. Reliability was established through Cronbach’s {alpha} coefficients. Factor loadings ranged from 0.48 to 0.84 for scales measuring attitudes towards adolescent sexual behavior and {alpha} coefficients ranged from 0.61 to 0.81. Factor loadings ranged from 0.34 to 0.90 for scales measuring youth assets and {alpha} coefficients ranged from 0.69 to 0.85. Because of several limitations (e.g. construct validity was not measured), additional development work is needed. Therefore, the AHABS is still in a developing, but promising, state. Additional psychometric work will provide program practitioners and evaluators with a psychometrically sound tool to measure behaviors, attitudes and assets.


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