The effects of father absence on risky sexual behaviour in adolescents: A meta-analysis and findings from an Australian birth cohort study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Factors within the early family environment have been linked to risky behaviour in adolescence. Located within a biopsychosocial theoretical paradigm, this thesis outlined the major theories that provide a framework for understanding the link between the family of origin and adolescent risky sexual behaviour (RSB) which presents significant challenges to the health and wellbeing of adolescents. This thesis provided an overview of the established empirical predictors of adolescent RSB and identified the interrelations of these variables. A systematic review of the last twenty-five years of research into the association between father absence and adolescent RSB found that 71 out of the 86 (83%) studies found that father absence was positively associated with adolescent RSB. Founded upon the systematic review, a meta-analysis of 24 studies that measured adolescent RSB through early age at first sexual intercourse (FSI) was conducted. The studies were examined together, and then disaggregated by design, those that examined timing of father absence; large sample investigations; and those that sampled from low SES populations. Risk of bias was assessed through the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. All analyses evidenced a significant, positive relationship between father absence and adolescent RSB, with early father absence (birth to 5 years) shown to be the most potent predictor, conferring three and a half times the risk. The thesis then examined data from an Australian prospective birth cohort study - the ‘Raine Study’. At the 16/17-year followup, 1152 respondents reported on early FSI (<16 years). Father absence was found to have a significant, positive association with early FSI, after controlling for gender, SES, maternal age, maternal education, maternal mental health, child mental health, maternal AOD use, child AOD use, child engagement with school, and family functioning. Strengths, limitations and implications for future research, policy and practice were discussed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.018 | 0.027 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.034 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".