What time do you plan to sleep tonight? An intense longitudinal study of adolescent daily sleep self-regulation via planning and its associations with sleep opportunity

Background: Most adolescents are sleep deprived on school days, yet how they self-regulate their sleep-wake behaviours is poorly understood. Using ecological momentary assessment, this intense longitudinal study explored patterns of adolescents’ daily bedtime and risetime planning and execution, and whether these behaviours predicted sleep opportunity.Methods: Every afternoon, for 2 school weeks and the subsequent 2 vacation weeks, 205 (54.1% female, 64.4% non-White) adolescents from Year 10-12 (M±SDage = 16.9±0.9) reported their plans for bedtime (BT) that evening, and for risetimes (RT) the following day. Actual daily sleep was measured via actigraphy and sleep diary.Results: Some adolescents never planned bedtime (school 19.5%, non-school 53.2%) or risetime (school 1.5%, non-school 24.4%). More adolescents planned consistently (≥75% of days) on schooldays (BT=29.9%, RT=61.3%) compared on non-schooldays (BT=3.5%, RT=2.5%). On average adolescents went to bed later than planned, delaying their bedtime longer on non-schooldays (71min) compared to schooldays (46min). Of those who executed their plans within ≤15 minutes, more did it consistently (≥75% of days) on schooldays (BT=40.9%, RT=67.7%) than on non-schooldays (BT=29.7%, RT=58.6%). Mixed effects models utilizing daily data, controlling for sex, race, and study day, showed that bedtime planning predicted longer time in bed (TIB; p < .01) on schooldays and shorter TIB on non-schooldays (p < .01); greater delay in actual (compared to planned) bedtime predicted shorter TIB (p-values < .001).Conclusions: Adolescents may require support during the transition from parent-controlled to autonomous sleep self-regulation. Bedtime planning on school nights and going to bed as planned are two modifiable sleep regulatory behaviours that are protective and may serve as therapeutic targets for increasing sleep opportunity in adolescents.

A Qualitative Analysis of Black and White Adolescents’ Perceptions of and Responses to Racially Targeted Food and Drink Commercials on Television

Food and beverage marketing is a major driver of childhood obesity, and companies target their least nutritious products to Black youth. However, little is known about adolescents’ perceptions of and responses to racially targeted food marketing. In this qualitative study, we investigated how Black and White adolescents perceived and responded to racially targeted television commercials for food and beverages. We recruited 39 adolescents aged 12–17 years in New York City to watch a series of commercials and then participate in an in-depth interview using a semi-structured interview guide. The research team recorded, transcribed, and analyzed interviews using ATLAS.ti. Overall, participants responded positively to commercials that featured celebrities. They were also able to recognize the commercials and reported they had been exposed to marketing from these companies on social media and in subways/buses. Many participants considered the advertised brands as healthy or able to enhance athletic performance because of their endorsement by or association with athletes. Participants also understood that marketers were using racial targeting in their ads but that targeting did not translate into improved perceptions or responses towards advertised products. These findings suggest the need to empirically evaluate and further explore Black and White adolescents’ responses to racially targeted food marketing.

Duration-Weighted Exposure to Neighborhood Disadvantage and Racial-Ethnic Differences in Adolescent Sexual Behavior

Racial-ethnic disparities in adolescent sexual risk behavior are associated with health disparities during adulthood and are therefore important to understand. Some scholars argue that neighborhood disadvantage induces disparities, yet prior research is mixed. We extend neighborhood-effects research by addressing long-term exposure to neighborhood disadvantage and estimation bias resulting from inclusion of time-varying covariates. Drawing from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, we compare a point-in-time proximal measure of neighborhood disadvantage with a duration-weighted measure using marginal structural models with inverse probability of treatment weights. Findings indicate that multiracial, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic youth exhibit significantly higher sexual risk and duration-weighted exposure to neighborhood disadvantage than non-Hispanic white adolescents. Duration-weighted exposure is a better predictor of sexual initiation and number of partners by age 15 than a point-in-time proximal measure of neighborhood disadvantage and accounts for a substantial portion of the race-ethnic differences in sexual risk.

Impact of malocclusion severity on the quality of life of non-white adolescents

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of malocclusion severity on the oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) of non-white adolescents. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 585 non-white Brazilian adolescents (12-15 years). The Dental Aesthetic Index (DAI) was used for the clinical assessment of malocclusion and Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) on OHRQoL. Deep bite and transverse occlusal relationships were assessed in association with the DAI. The adolescents with DAI 3 and 4 were distributed into 4 groups: G1 - individuals without transverse occlusal relationships or deep bite; G2 - individuals with only posterior crossbite; G3 - individuals with only deep bite; and G4 - individuals with Brodie bite. The backward stepwise procedure was used to select variables on each level, eliminating variables with a p≤0.20. From the logistic regression analyses, the adjusted odds ratios were estimated with the respective 95% confidence intervals. The adolescents with severe malocclusion divided into the G2, G3 and G4 showed p-value of 0.0501, 0.1475, and 0.5407, respectively, but did not remain in the final model. Malocclusion severity had no impact on the OHRQoL of non-white adolescents.

The Intersection Between Sex and Race in Understanding Substance Co-Use Patterns in Adolescents From the Fragile Families Study

The current study examined the prevalence of alcohol, cigarette, and cannabis co-use among a longitudinal cohort of youth predominately born to single-parent families. Data were drawn from wave six of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study ( N = 2976; M age = 15.6; 49% female; 53% non-Hispanic Black, 27% Hispanic, 20% White). Adolescents’ reports of their past 30-day use of alcohol, cigarettes, and cannabis were used to construct eight mutually exclusive use groups. Multinomial logistic regressions adjusting for sociodemographic factors revealed that Black adolescents were at lower relative risk of using Alcohol Only compared to White adolescents. Black males were at greater relative risk of using Cannabis Only than both White males and Black females. Finally, Hispanic males were at a marginally increased relative risk of co-using Alcohol and Cannabis compared to White males. Prevention efforts targeting Black and Hispanic males’ use of cannabis (both alone and in combination with alcohol) may be beneficial.

“I’m just a girl; not a White girl”: Intersectionality and Early Adolescents’ Race-x-Gender Identities

Social identity is defined, in part, as the sense of “we-ness” one forms with a social group. The social identity literature, however, is largely divided by identities—with racial identity conceptualized, measured, and interpreted separately from gender identity—rather than examining how youth understand these group memberships at their intersections (i.e., “we” Black girls or “we” White boys). The current mixed-method analysis examines the subjective importance and meaning of Black and White early adolescents’ (Mage = 12.51; N = 63) racial by gender identities. Black girls, in particular, rated their intersectional identities as important and White adolescents, overall, rated intersectionality as low in importance. Qualitative analyses further reveal that youth reason about the (in)significance of intersectionality on different levels: personal (the self), relational (others, peers), and structural (stereotypes, discrimination). We discuss contributions for studying identity development and intersectionality during adolescence.