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Abstract #160421

Juan Antonio Galvez-Buccollini¹, Phabiola M. Herrera¹, Valerie Paz-Soldan, PhD, MPH², Suzanne De Lea³, Robert H. Gilman⁴, and James C. Anthony, PhD⁵. (1) Asociacion Benefica PRISMA, Carlos Gonzales 251, Maranga, San Miguel, Lima, Lima 32, Peru, 5114640221, pherrera@prisma.org.pe, (2) International Health and Development, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, 1440 Canal Street, Suite 2200, New Orleans, LA 70112, (3) School of Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, NM 87131, (4) Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 615 N Wolfe Street/W 5515, Baltimore, MD 21205, (5) Department of Epidemiology, Michigan State University, B601 West Fee Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824

Context: Alcohol use is frequently identified as a potential contributor to risky sexual behaviors. However, some studies found contradictory results with this association. Given this conflicting evidence, researchers have focused on other variables such as expectancies about alcohol's effects that might help explain the relationship between alcohol use and risky sexual behavior. Method: This study examine the association between heavy episodic drinking (HED), and separately, sex-related alcohol expectancies (SRAE) and sexual risk behaviors using cross sectional data from questionnaires implemented among 400 young adult men, ages 18 to 30 year old living in a shantytown located on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. Results: We found that HED was associated with an increase in having two or more sexual partners and having sexual intercourse with a casual partner during the last year (odds of 2.47-2.74). In addition, SRAE was also associated with high-risk sexual behaviors and with having unprotected sex during the last sexual intercourse (odds of 1.69-2.28). Conclusion: HED and SRAE are associated with risky sexual behaviors, but HED is not associated with unprotected sex. Also, SRAE has an independent effect on risky sexual behaviors after controlling for alcohol consumption level. SRAE is a factor that could contribute to explaining risky sexual behavior beyond the pharmacological effects of alcohol. These findings indicate that considerating alcohol use is important in order to design better prevention intervention programs. Interventions focusing on changing beliefs about alcohol's effects could reduce both the amount of consumption and risky sexual behaviors.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the effect of sex-related alcohol expectancies on the link between alcohol consumption and sexual behavior among young adults in a Latin American shantytown.
• Discuss the importance of alcohol as a psychoactive drug that affect the drinker’s ability to evaluate sexual risk.
• Understand better that taking account factors associated with sexual risk behavior in different cultural contexts is important in order to reduce the global threat of STIs and HIV

Keywords: Alcohol Use, Latin American

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.