Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #107789

Catherine Cubbin, PhD, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 500 Parnassus Avenue, MU-3 East, Box 0900, San Francisco, CA 94143-0900, 415-476-6620, ccubbin@itsa.ucsf.edu, Sekai Chideya, MD, MPH, Family & Community Medicine, UCSF, 500 Parnassus Ave., MU-3E, Box 0900, San Francisco, CA 94143-0900, Sonia Jain, MPH, Community Assessment Planning and Education Unit, Alameda County Public Health Department, 1000 Broadway, Fifth Floor, Oakland, CA 94607, Claire Brindis, DrPH, Center for Reproductive Health Research and Policy, University of California at San Francisco, 3333 California Street; Suite 265, San Francisco, CA 94143-0936, Paula Braveman, MD, MPH, Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 500 Parnassus Avenue, MU-3 East, Box 0900, San Francisco, CA 94143, John Santelli, MD, MPH, School of Public Health, Columbia University, 60 Haven Avenue, New York, NY 10027, and Samuel F. Posner, PhD, Division of Reproductive Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway NE, MS K-34, Atlanta, GA 30341.

Background: Risky adolescent sexual behaviors can lead to sexually transmitted infections and the oftentimes negative social consequences of teen pregnancies. Knowledge is limited on the role of neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) in adolescents' sexual behaviors; previous multilevel studies of sexual behaviors are limited by cross-sectional designs. Methods: The sample includes 5,970 adolescents in grades 9-11 interviewed in wave I (1994-95) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health who never had sex. Neighborhood SES (census tract-level poverty and affluence concentration) will be used to predict initiation of sex and contraceptive use by wave II (1996) controlling for the adolescents' family income, parental education, race/ethnicity, age, and family structure using multilevel logistic regression models stratified by gender. Potential mediators of the effects of neighborhood SES will then be explored to identify policy relevant factors upon which to intervene. Hypotheses: We hypothesize that (1) neighborhood SES will be an independent predictor of sexual behaviors, and results will vary by gender; and (2) factors at the adolescent (e.g., teen parenthood norms, pro-social activities, college expectations), family (e.g., parental connectedness, parental communication, parental presence) and school (e.g., proportion drop-outs, proportion college-bound, class size) levels will mediate the observed relationships. Implications: This study will identify policy-relevant factors upon which public health professionals could intervene to decrease the prevalence of risky sexual behaviors among adolescents. The public health significance is large because of the number of persons at risk as well as the serious nature of the potential consequences, including teen pregnancy, teen childbearing, and STIs.

Learning Objectives:

• Educate participants about the influence of neighborhood socioeconomic status on adolescent sexual behaviors.
• Identify policy-relevant factors upon which to intervene to decrease risk sexual behaviors among adolescents.

Keywords: Risky Behaviors, Contraception

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.