Psychosocial outcomes of urban African American adolescents born to teenage mothers

This is a study of psychosocial outcomes of adolescents born to teenage mot hers. Adolescents' problem behaviors, psychological well-being, social supp ort, school variables, and sexual behaviors are compared across three group s those born to mothers 17 or younger, mothers 18-19 years old, and mothers 20 or older. Analyses from two samples of African American adolescents fro m Maryland (n = 205) and Michigan (n = 570) are reported. The results from both samples indicate that mother's age at birth is unrelated to adolescent s' psychosocial outcomes. These two studies add to the limited number of an alyses that examine adolescent outcomes for children of teen mothers. The r esults suggest that efforts to understand social structural determinants of healthy and problematic adolescent development may be more informative tha n examining the effects of mother's age. They also suggest that teen pregna ncy prevention programs may be more effective if they are part of a larger prevention strategy that incorporates social structural change efforts and not only a focus on individual level change.