Material and methods

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, research on adolescent risk behaviour in Germany has been largely based on studies in high-risk populations or small, homogenous samples (Lampert & Thamm 2007, Richter & Leppin 2008). At best, existing studies contained brief ideas about the distribution and patterns of risk behaviour, either because they were based on small case numbers and regional samples at the community/city level or because they contained no data on trends. Interestingly, the last five years have witnessed an upsurge in surveys on adolescent health and health behaviour. Today, four large surveys are addressing risk behaviour during adolescence in Germany. The ‘Drug Affinity Study’ (Drogenaffinitätsstudie) of the Federal Centre for Health Education, the German ‘Health Interview and Examination Survey for Childern and Adolescents’ (KiGGS) of the Robert Koch-Institute, the ‘European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs’ (ESPAD) and the ‘Health Behaviour in School-aged Children’ (HSBC) study.KeywordsRisk BehaviourFamily AffluenceParental OccupationFamily Affluence ScaleAdolescent Risk BehaviourThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.