Health Risk Behavior Patterns Among Adolescents With and Without Recent Maternal Incarceration Experiences

Adolescents with maternal incarceration experiences have reported significantly higher rates of health risk behaviors than adolescents without such experience, and their health risk behaviors tend to co-occur rather than exist in isolation. However, there is a lack of research on the clustering of health risk behaviors among adolescents exposed to maternal incarceration in comparison with their counterparts without such experience. This study used the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) dataset to examine the potential similarities and differences. Latent class analyses suggested that the four-class models were selected for both groups, with some common patterns shared. When classified into common patterns, a significantly higher proportion of adolescents exposed to maternal incarceration were classified into patterns with more serious health risk behaviors and they had higher rates of health risk behaviors than adolescents without such experience. These adolescents also reported unique patterns of health risk behaviors different from their counterparts.