A secondary data analysis of the National Commission on Children: 1990 Surv
ey of Parents and Children was conducted with a subsample of 457 parent-tee
n pairs who responded to the "worry about AIDS" question. The teen's worry
about contracting AIDS was associated with race, parent's education, the am
ount of discipline from the parent for engaging in sex, the teen's desire t
o talk to the parent about the problem of sex, the teen's rating of the nei
ghborhood as a safe place to grow up, whether the parent listened to the te
en's telephone interview and the parent's response to whether his or her te
en had a history of sexually transmitted disease. Of the parent-teen pairs
in the subsample, 46% (N = 210) agreed in their responses about worry. Agre
ement was more frequent among the parent-teen pairs when compared to random
ly constructed surrogate pairs. Dyadic analysis supported a family system v
iew of perceived susceptibility.