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March 25, 2008Risky Teen Behavior Nay Not Occur at Home or School: But How to Track? |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: How can researchers track where teens go when not in or near home or school to see if this movement has an impact on health-related behavior such as smoking or sexual activity? The answer is through that ubiquitous teen accessory -- the cell phone. In a paper published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health researchers from Indiana University School of Medicine report on a pilot study which evaluated the feasibility of using global position system -enabled cell phones to track where 14- to 16-year-old girls spent their time. "We didn't know if the technology would work, if the kids would take the cell phones with them or would leave them at home. But they did carry the phones and the GPS data revealed that they were spending more time away from home, school and surrounding areas than anticipated. Learning that we were able to track their movement is important because previous studies which have looked at the effect of environment on teens have focused only on home, school and surrounding areas," said Sarah Wiehe, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine and a Regenstrief Institute affiliated scientist. "A person's environment in some way influences or is at least associated with their health and health outcomes and in the case of adolescents their health behaviors. Based on the success of the initial project, the researchers have received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to enroll 160 urban teenage girls in a study to track their movements in spring, summer, fall and winter (to account for seasonal variations).
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