Session: Understanding the Role and Impact of Pubertal Timing in Adolescence: Considerations for Prevention Science (Society for Prevention Research 23rd Annual Meeting)

The most significant biological change that occurs during adolescence is the onset and completion of puberty. However, puberty is not just biological but also psychosocial. Even though puberty is often treated as a personal and private experience, the profound biological transition from a pre-pubertal child’s body into a post-pubertal sexually mature body, and the outward changes that occur, are evident not only to the adolescent but also to adults and peers.

Puberty is a process of sequential events with variable onset and progression and there is no exact period of time considered “normal” for development. This variation in pubertal onset and tempo has led to research into the impact of pubertal timing, a measure of how developed an adolescent is in relation to her or his peers. Adolescents are classified as developing early, on-time, or late based on comparison with the average pubertal development of their same-aged and same-sex peers.

Research consistently shows that early developing adolescents are at an elevated risk for detrimental outcomes including sexual risk taking, delinquency, substance use, and psychopathology. While it is critical to identify adolescents at heightened risk, little attention has been paid to determining how to prevent these outcomes and therefore improve the health and well-being of early developing adolescents.

The purpose of this symposium is to discuss the role and impact of pubertal development on health behaviors and outcomes in adolescence and beyond from a prevention science perspective. The three presentations represent varying methodologies, populations, and outcomes. Paper one is a qualitative research study exploring how Mexican American girls interpret and cope with their pubertal development. Paper two presents the relationship between pubertal timing and high-risk sexual behavior among adolescents currently in out-of-home care. Paper three examines whether peer risk behaviors mediate the relationship between pubertal timing and lifetime educational attainment in a nationwide sample.

It is not possible to alter biological pubertal development to prevent maladaptive behaviors and health outcomes. Therefore, it is critical to determine how modifiable factors, from the family and peer contexts to policy, can be influenced to improve the health and well-being for early developing adolescents. This symposium will present the need to incorporate an understanding of adolescent pubertal development into prevention programming in order to facilitate a healthy transition from childhood to adulthood.