A novel Adolescent Health Behavior Checklist

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Adolescent Health
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Adolescents face increasing rates of obesity, low physical activity, and sleep disturbances.
• There is a need for evidence-based strategies to address these rising health concerns in youth.
• Policymakers require reliable tools to develop targeted health education and interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and validate the Adolescent Health Behavior Checklist (AHBC).
• To provide a scientific basis for developing targeted health behavior education and policies for adolescents.
• To create a comprehensive tool for assessing adolescent health behaviors.

Main Methods:

• Developed a draft 6-dimensional AHBC covering exercise, diet, personal responsibility, sleep, interpersonal relationships, and stress management.
• Utilized exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with 177 middle school students to determine the optimal factor structure.
• Employed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with an independent sample of 349 middle school students to confirm construct validity.

Main Results:

• The final AHBC is a 31-item checklist with a hierarchical 6-factor structure.
• The checklist demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.96) and construct validity.
• The model showed a good fit (SRMR = 0.058, CFI = 0.990) with high factor loadings and acceptable convergent and discriminant validity.

Conclusions:

• The Adolescent Health Behavior Checklist (AHBC) is a validated tool for assessing comprehensive adolescent health behaviors.
• The AHBC can serve as a benchmark, with a score of four indicating healthier behaviors.
• The study discusses limitations and future directions for refining the AHBC for theoretical and practical applications.