Jan. 14, 2013 — A new study highlights the risk that female teenagers face when they go online -- a risk heightened for teen girls who have been victims of abuse or neglect.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, shows that 30 percent of teenagers reported having offline meetings with people they have met on the Internet and whose identity had not been fully confirmed prior to the meeting.

"These meetings may have been benign, but for an adolescent girl to do it is dangerous," says Jennie Noll, PhD, a psychologist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the study's lead author.

Moreover, abused or neglected teenage girls were more likely to present themselves online in a sexually...