ABSTRACT
The explicit focus of Manlove and colleagues (Manlove, Franzetta, Ryan, & Moore, this volume) is to investigate adolescent sexual relationships in order to better understand their impact on adolescent reproductive health. Specifically, they examine a key proximate determinant of pregnancy—contraceptive consistency. The findings presented in their chapter, along with those in their previous studies (e.g., Manlove, Ryan, & Franzetta, 2003), provide a new contribution to what we know about adolescents' reproductive behaviors because they examine relationship-specific contraceptive consistency, and demonstrate that, indeed, relationship (as well as individual) characteristics do matter. Given their emphasis, as well as our own areas of expertise, we develop our comments in the context of adolescent reproductive health outcomes, namely, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
