Individuals' Relationship Experiences from Adolescence to Adulthood: Associations with Family Characteristics in Adolescence and Implications for Mental and Physical Health
Open Access
- Author:
- Boyd, Lisa Marie
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 10, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Valarie Elizabeth King, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Valarie Elizabeth King, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
David R Johnson, Committee Member
Melissa Hardy, Committee Member
David Eggebeen, Outside Member - Keywords:
- romantic relationships
social determinants of health
transition to adulthood
family
life course
latent class analysis
Add Health - Abstract:
- This study takes a three-part approach to understanding life course linkages between patterns of relationship experiences and changes in mental and physical health during the transition to adulthood. It explores family antecedents of grown adolescents’ intimate relationship experiences as a way of providing sociodemographic context for observed associations between experienced relationship patterns and health. The research questions guiding this analysis are: 1) What do patterns of intimate relationship experiences look like for a recent cohort of young adults in the United States, and how prevalent are different patterns in the population? 2)How do family characteristics such as family structure, parent-child relationship quality, family belonging, and parental relationship instability influence an individuals’ likelihood of experiencing one pattern over another? And 3) Do patterns of relationship experiences have consequences for changes in health (physical health, mental health, and health behaviors) over time, as a developmental life course perspective would suggest? This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a school-based, nationally representative data set with rich information on factors that reflect and impact adolescent and adult mental and physical well-being. Add Health comprises four waves that span 1994-2008. This study uses information from Waves 1 and 4; respondents in the analytic sample are 15-19 in Wave 1 and 28-32 in Wave 4. Results from a latent class analysis reveal that a 7-class solution best describes patterns of relationship experiences between adolescence and adulthood (Waves 1 and 4 of Add Health) and that considerable heterogeneity exists in the relationship patterns lived by individuals as they transition to adulthood. Multiple family characteristics are associated with membership in classes of the latent variable “Patterns of relationship experiences,” with family belonging and family structure appearing to be particularly important. Patterns of relationship experiences are associated with changes in health between Waves 1 and 4, with the strongest associations observed for change in health behaviors (smoking and heavy alcohol use). Findings suggest that examining relationship histories may be a useful tool for enhancing our understanding of adult health, and that incorporating information on individuals’ intimate relationships and sexual experiences can lead to valuable insights for assessing and intervening in the development of good health and health behaviors across the early life course.