Table 3 shows the prevalence of the four risk classes that emerged for boys. Risk class 1 was most prevalent class, representing about 35 % of the boys in the sample. The item-response probabilities, shown in Table 3, are similar conceptually to factor loadings, but here they represent the probability that youths in the latent class exhibit each risky behavior. For example, boys in risk class 1 were likely to be very early sexual initiators (0.88), very early tobacco initiators (0.95), and very early alcohol users (0.86). Relative to the other classes, boys in this class also showed an elevated probability of causing a pregnancy (0.39) and experiencing an STD (0.20). Urban African American boys had a higher probability of being in this class (0.45) than urban or rural European American boys (0.31 and 0.18, respectively), as did youth in the high-risk sample (0.85). We labeled this class “preadolescent multiproblem” as it was defined by preadolescent initiation of sexual activity, tobacco use, and alcohol/drug use. The second risk class represented 14 % of the sample. Boys in this class had
