Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To examine changes in the prevalence of 15 HIV/AIDS sex and drug risk behaviors in delinquent youth during the 14 years after they leave detention, focusing on sex and racial/ethnic differences. METHODS: The Northwestern Juvenile Project, a prospective longitudinal study of 1829 youth randomly sampled from detention in Chicago, Illinois, recruited between 1995 and 1998 and reinterviewed up to 11 times. Independent interviewers assessed HIV/AIDS risk behaviors using the National Institutes on Drug Abuse Risk Behavior Assessment. RESULTS: Fourteen years after detention (median age, 30 years), one-quarter of males and one-tenth of females had >1 sexual partner in the past 3 months. One-tenth of participants reported recent unprotected vaginal sex with a high-risk partner. There were many sex and racial/ethnic differences. For example, African American males had 4.67 times the odds of having >1 partner than African American females (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.22-6.76). Over time, compared with non-Hispanic white males, African American males had 2.56 times the odds (95% CI, 1.97-3.33) and Hispanic males had 1.63 times the odds (95% CI, 1.24-2.12) of having multiple partners, even after adjusting for incarceration and age. Non-Hispanic white females were more likely to have multiple partners than racial/ethnic minority females. CONCLUSIONS: Although rates decrease over time, prevalence of sex risk behaviors are much higher than the general population. Among males, racial/ethnic minorities were at particular risk. The challenge for pediatric health is to address how disproportionate confinement of racial/ethnic minority youth contributes to disparities in the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | e20160360 |
| Journal | Pediatrics |
| Volume | 139 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2017 |
Funding
This work was supported by: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Drug Abuse grants R01DA019380, R01DA022953, and R01DA028763; the NIH National Institute of Mental Health grants R01MH54197 and R01MH59463 (Division of Services and Intervention Research and Center for Mental Health Research on AIDS); and Department of Justice grants 1999-JE-FX-1001, 2005-JL-FX-0288, and 2008-JF-FX-0068 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Major funding was also provided by the NIH National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Center for Mental Health Services, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment), the NIH Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention), the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, the NIH Office of Rare Diseases, the Department of Labor, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Additional funds were provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the Chicago Community Trust. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
