How old are young people when they start having sex? Unravelling the applicability of Cox proportional hazards regression.

Purpose: How old are young people when they start having sex? Although this question is important for educators and policymakers, its answer can easily mislead due to methodology that does not take into account age-censoring and generational trends. This study investigated whether 1-year birth-year...

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Publicado en:Journal of Public Health: From Theory to Practice (2198-1833) Vol. 30; no. 8; pp. 1873 - 1881
Autores principales: de Graaf, Hanneke, ter Schure, Judith, van Liere, Geneviève A. F. S.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Aug2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Aug2022
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      pub: Springer Nature
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        157955341
        10.1007/s10389-021-01619-6
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        atl: How old are young people when they start having sex? Unravelling the applicability of Cox proportional hazards regression.
      aug:
        au:
          de Graaf, Hanneke
          ter Schure, Judith
          van Liere, Geneviève A. F. S.
        affil:
          Research Department, Rutgers, P.O. Box 9022, 3506 GA, Utrecht, The Netherlands
          Significant Help, Statistical Consultancy, Utrecht, The Netherlands
          Public Health Service South Limburg, Geleen, The Netherlands
      su:
        Netherlands
        Masturbation
        Human sexuality
        Age distribution
        Sexual intercourse
        Sex education
        Regression analysis
        Surveys
        Questionnaires
        Kaplan-Meier estimator
        Descriptive statistics
        Oral sex
        Data analysis software
        Proportional hazards models
      sug:
        subj:
          Masturbation
          Human sexuality
          Age distribution
          Sexual intercourse
          Sex education
          Netherlands
          Regression analysis
          Surveys
          Questionnaires
          Kaplan-Meier estimator
          Descriptive statistics
          Oral sex
          Data analysis software
          Proportional hazards models
      keyword:
        Adolescence
        Cox regression
        Population study
        Sexual debut
        Adolescence
        Cox regression
        Population study
        Sexual debut
      ab: Purpose: How old are young people when they start having sex? Although this question is important for educators and policymakers, its answer can easily mislead due to methodology that does not take into account age-censoring and generational trends. This study investigated whether 1-year birth-year cohorts can be jointly modeled by Cox proportional hazards regression to estimate sexual debut ages and to investigate age trends for different sexual behaviors. Method: We used pooled data from three Dutch periodic population-based surveys, for which 33,377 participants, born between 1980 and 2004, completed an online questionnaire. Results: Cox proportional hazards regression is appropriate if hazard changes over birth years appear proportionally similar among ages. The Dutch data shows such hazard changes for petting, oral sex, and sexual intercourse, but not for masturbation, French kissing, or manual sex. For sexual intercourse, the Cox model estimates can be interpreted as an approximate linear increase of 1 month in the median sexual debut age per birth-year cohort, resulting in an estimated debut age of 18.17 years in the current (2020) generation of Dutch adolescents. Conclusion: If the assumptions are met, we recommend using the Cox regression modeling approach to estimate how old young people are when they start having sex, since this method yields precise and current debut ages by pooling information across birth-year cohorts without arbitrarily combining them in multiple-year groups. The age of first intercourse is increasing, so continuous sexuality education throughout high school is advisable, in addition to early sexuality education.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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