ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on contemporary health and social issues that often affect adolescents and young adults. It reviews the current literature on four sets of behaviors that often result in negative health outcomes: substance use, risky sexual behavior, gender-based violence, and cyberbullying. Although education and prevention programs have made great strides in reducing sexual risk behaviors that place adolescents and young adults at risk for sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, and unplanned pregnancy, there is still much work to be done. Adolescents and young adults also account for 34% of the 56,300 people infected with HIV in the United States each year. When compared to research on substance abuse, risky sexual behavior, and gender-based violence, the research base on cyberbullying is less developed. Indeed, a review of empirical studies shows that large proportions of adolescents report being victims of cyberbullying.
