Improving the Prediction of Risk Behaviors of Filipino Adolescents: Beyond Demographic, Socioeconomic and Family Structure Factors

Corazon M. Raymundo, University of the Philippines

This paper will use the framework of protective and risk factors in explaining the current risk behaviors of young people in the Philippines. This is important because a preliminary analysis of the latest data shows an increase in the prevalence of all risk behaviors that are being tracked down in a series of adolescent surveys. Also the public program systems in the country are still grappling with effective handles in reducing such risks, worse because the levels of such risks and the influences are largely unknown and not understood, respectively. To substantiate the research objectives of the paper, it will use the 2002 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Survey (YAFS3) data, the most recent in a series of such data collection efforts in the Philippines. YAFS3 is a nationwide sample consisting of 20,000 respondents from all the 16 regions of the country conducted on April – September 2002. Respondents are 15-27 years old females and males found in their households. YAFS3 also has an extensive qualitative data collection system. The development of the survey instrument benefited from a series of focus group discussions conducted primarily for that purpose. It is the contention of the author that demographic, socio-economic and family structure variables are all important cultural contexts within which young people live. While they are all important factors in influencing behavior and previous studies attest to this, they do not cause young people to engage in risk behaviors. Knowing them is important but they are insufficient to accurately target interventions aimed at reducing risks or protecting the adolescents. Rather, there are more proximate factors that either directly affect or serve as ‘red flags’ for these behaviors and are more powerfully associated with exacerbating or minimizing risks to young people. The analysis will put these two sets of factors at the forefront of determinants of risk behaviors. To be able to do the above, this paper will take advantage of the wide range of data that YAFS3 intentionally collected in order to improve the understanding of adolescent risk behaviors and the identification of more useful factors to explain such behaviors. The ecological systems model is also applied to bring in other contexts that are closer to adolescent behaviors such as family variables (beyond composition, location, etc), school (beyond aspiration, level, type), peers (beyond numbers, sex) and community. Thus. for each risk behavior examined, individual level factors that include some personality measures of the adolescent, failures in school, activities with friends; the peer context as well as more intimate family contexts will be examined to add to the explanatory factors provided by the usual demographic, socio-economic and family structure variables. Insofar as the adolescent health risk behaviors that will be explained, the paper selects behaviors that represent some of the major threats to adolescent health and well-being such as: smoking, alcohol use, drug use, suicidal risk, physical violence and premarital sexual intercourse. In the Philippine context, this is the first time that data on suicides and physical violence will be available at the national level. Following the Problem Behavior Theory, these risk behaviors are linked as their motivation for undertaking the behaviors appears to be related to their quest for establishing their own individuality. Analysis of previous data substantiated these for at least smoking, drinking alcohol, drug use and premarital sex. The paper will attempt to establish these linkages throwing in suicidal attempts and physical violence into the analysis. The paper will utilize appropriate techniques of analysis in answering the questions that have been posed above.