Christine Elizabeth Kaestle

• MPH, PhD
• Professor at Virginia Tech

Purpose The purpose of this pilot study was to assess the impact of media literacy for tobacco prevention for youth delivered through a community site. Design A randomized pretest-posttest evaluation design with matched-contact treatment and control conditions. Setting The pilot study was delivered through the YMCA in a lower-income suburban and...

Despite efforts to identify masturbation as a strategy to improve sexual health, promote relational intimacy, and reduce unwanted pregnancy, STIs, and HIV transmission, masturbation as a context for healthy sexual development has been met with silence or trepidation in the scientific and educational communities. Relegated to the realm of commercial...

The authors examined the relation between age at first vaginal intercourse and a positive nucleic acid amplification test for sexually transmitted infection (STI). A nationally representative sample of 9,844 respondents aged 18-26 years was tested for chlamydial infection, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis in wave 3 (2001-2002) of the National Longitud...

Adolescent sexual development is informed by individual, relational, generational, institutional, and cultural perspectives. Families matter: they are the social institution at the intersection of adolescent development and broader social systems, charged with the responsibility for rearing children and adolescents to adulthood. This narrative revi...

Defining sexual minority status longitudinally over critical developmental periods is essential for understanding the roots of health disparities. Theory supports multidimensional continuums, but current research often examines single measures of sexual activity, sexual attractions, or self-labeled identity separately. Here, a new typology of longi...

To examine sexual partner acquisition into young adulthood and to explore what characteristics of the adolescent family context might predict this change, we used growth curve modeling to examine data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents followed longitudinally over 13 years through young adulthood (N = 5385). Growth curve modelin...

Children’s observation of sex and nudity among parents, peers, or strangers has received limited scholarly attention, mostly because research on sexuality in childhood is difficult or prohibitive to conduct. To address this topic, we conducted a secondary data analysis of 57 human sexuality students’ narratives regarding the emotional and situation...

Introduction and aims: Breathalyser estimate of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is widely used as an objective intoxication measure, but is not always practical in nightlife contexts. This study uses in situ data collected in nightlife environments to explore how four measures of intoxication are related so as to inform the development of a more...

Based on the developmental theories of life course and emerging adulthood, the current study examines a central question about the diversity of trajectories among young adults who drop out of college. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and provides prospective data on a nationally representative sample of US...

Objective: We examine how sexual activity relates to sexual well-being within the context of sexual attitudes, sexual agency, and sexual desire. Participants/methods: We surveyed 471 college women in 2012-14 who had ever had sex. Results: Sexual agency and sexual desire consistently predicted well-being, regardless of recent sexual activity. T...

Interpersonal neurobiology is an interdisciplinary theory that is being used by couple and family therapists. However, more investigation is needed to determine if this theory can accurately explain family relationships over time. In this study, we used the nationally representative National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Hea...

We examined young women’s anger towards mothers and fathers in emerging adulthood using a qualitative methodology and a feminist theoretical framework. To achieve this objective, we interviewed 16 young women (18–25 years-old) residing in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region about their relationship with fathers and mothers and their anger within these rel...

Family is an excellent potential arena to challenge gender norms and change power structures in society because of its pivotal role in socializing generations on gender and other axes of power and oppression. This commentary examines interdisciplinary feminist perspectives on family relationships and discusses the ways in which feminist scholarship...

This entry examines the growing use of large datasets in LGBTQ research. LGBTQ researchers are increasingly involved in the creation of large datasets, through their own data collection or through advocating the inclusion of sexual and gender identity measures in existing large-scale data collection projects or mechanisms. Primary analyses (analyse...

Domestic violence (DV) is a serious and complex social issue which is associated with significant costs to both those individuals who are directly affected and the wider community. Preventative approaches with vulnerable population groups represent an important component of any integrated response to DV and should be informed by an understanding of...

We used a social constructionist and feminist framework to examine how young women negotiate gendered rules for anger in their romantic relationships and how such negotiations are associated with women’s power in these relationships. We analyzed 24 interviews using a grounded-theory methodology. Our analyses indicated five women resisted gendered r...

To determine (1) how reports of the ages of first cigarette smoked and daily smoking onset change from adolescence through emerging adulthood and into young adulthood and (2) what predicts reporting inconsistencies and recanting for both smoking milestones. Multinomial logistic regression models compared relative risks of the following: (1) consist...

Pro-tobacco messages in media play an important role in initiating smoking behavior among children, but can be addressed in health promotion media literacy interventions. Children from Southwest Virginia, US (age range: 8–14, N = 19) who participated in a tobacco media literacy intervention were invited to discuss their learning and understanding o...

In this study, we examine how highly informed therapists who identify as feminist: (a) describe how their feminist identities and ideas about feminism have evolved over time; (b) report stories of their own resistance to gender-based oppression; (c) report stories of their own collusion with the oppression of others; and (d) encourage clients to ex...

Although effects of violence in video games have been researched extensively, no empirical studies have examined effects of profanity, a form of verbal aggression, in video games. An experiment (N D 321) investigated effects of profanity used by protagonist and antagonist characters in a ''first-person shooter'' game on players' hostile expectation...

Building on the Wisconsin Model of Status Attainment, this study examined the contextual process of obtaining educational attainment and the subsequent work outcomes and career satisfaction. This study used the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) with structural equation modeling techniques to assess US participants from a...

Engaging in trading sex is associated with many co-occurring problems, including elevated risk for sexually transmitted infections. Various dimensions of social support from parents, schools, and mentors may be protective against sex trading and may ameliorate the impact of risk factors. This study analyzes data from respondents to Waves I and III...

The authors conducted a content analysis of articles listed in PubMed on bisexual health (N = 348). Methodological approaches favored cross-sectional surveys. Fewer than 20% of the articles analyzed data for bisexuals separately; most combined their data with homosexual participants. Most articles used convenience samples with poor representation o...

Most sexual health interventions focus on heterosexual sexual risk behavior. Health practitioners face a lack of information about the sexual health of sexual minority young adults (aged 18-26). Three indicators of sexual minority status (identity, behavior and romantic attractions) were assessed in 10,986 young adults who participated in Wave 3 of...

Parents, peers, schools, and the media are the primary contexts for educating young people about sexuality. Yet girls receive more sex education than boys, particularly in terms of menstruation. Lack of attention to how and what boys learn about menstruation has consequences for their private understanding about the biology of reproduction and also...

This study utilized a qualitative approach informed by a narrative perspective to examine 57 young adults’ stories about sexual and romantic relationships. Participants (25 men and 32 women) were asked to define relationships in terms of how they know they are in a romantic or a sexual partnership. Young adults identified the language they use for...

We examined whether individual and neighborhood characteristics associated with smoking were also predictive of exposure to smoking prevention education in schools, to determine whether education programs were targeted appropriately to reach neighborhoods with the greatest need. We merged data from 2 sources-the 2005 Virginia Youth Tobacco Survey (...

This study of current tobacco users from the 2005 Virginia Youth Tobacco Survey (N = 426) finds that girls were significantly more likely to receive cigarettes for free, particularly from adults, and were also more likely to receive cigars or cigarillos for free, but were more likely to buy smokeless tobacco from a store compared to boys.

Because sexual negotiations within young adult couples have consequences for sexual and reproductive health, it is important to determine associations between relationship contexts and sexual insistence. Bivariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted on data from 4,469 young adults participating in Wave 3 of the National Longitu...

Sexual relationships in young adulthood may have important ramifications for individuals' physical and emotional well-being. Nonetheless, representative information about young adults' sexual activities in long-term relationships and the emotional context of such relationships is rare. A subsample of 6,421 participants in Wave 3 of the National Lon...

To date, there has been relatively little work on gene-environment contributions to human sexuality, especially molecular analyses examining the potential contributions of specific polymorphisms in conjunction with life experiences. Using Wave III data from 717 heterozygous young adult sibling pairs included in the National Longitudinal Study of Ad...

Early pubertal timing and advanced physical maturity for age confer elevated risk for problem behaviors for both boys and girls. However, examinations of possible biological and social mediators have been limited. Using more than 4,000 adolescents under age 15 who participated in Waves I and II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Healt...

Exposure to televised music videos and pro wrestling were associated with rape acceptance (lower levels of agreeing with the statement "forcing a partner to have sex is never OK") among males, but not females, in a sample of 904 middle school students (controlling for overall television exposure, parenting style, and demographics).

To explore the influence of preexisting social ties between romantic partners (ie, knowing the partner as a friend or acquaintance before a relationship was considered "romantic" by the adolescent) on sexual risk behaviors among adolescents.Design, Setting, and By using data from 6658 adolescents from Wave II of the National Longitudinal Study of A...

To examine whether psychological or physical violence between adolescent romantic partners is associated with the sexual intercourse status of the couple. This study used a nationally representative sample of 6548 adolescents 12 to 21 years old from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Variables of interest include vio...

Few analytic opportunities have allowed us to evaluate the role that specific sexual acts and male latex condoms play in the acquisition of external anal warts (EAW) using longitudinal data. The acquisition of EAWs occurs from epithelial contact with other HPV-infected surfaces, and hence is dependent upon sexual behaviour. Our objectives were to c...

The age difference between a female and her partner may influence relationship dynamics in ways that put the female at increased risk of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Very little is known, however, about how romantic involvement progresses to intercourse, particularly among adolescent females with older male partners. Da...