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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

José Arturo Bauermeister, MPH, Marc Zimmerman, PhD, Yange Xue, PhD, and Cleopatra Caldwell, PhD. Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, 1420 Washington Heights, M5212, School of Public Health II, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, 734-945-9460, jbauerme@umich.edu

Background: Working during adolescence and emerging adulthood may increase interactions with older individuals interested in having sexual relation with youth. Because older sex partners have been associated with increased sex risk, this study explored whether working during adolescence and emerging adulthood increases the likelihood of having older sex partners in a sample of African American youth (n=562) interviewed from adolescence (age 14) to young adulthood d (age 24). Methods: We obtained a 90% response rate over the first four Waves (high school years) and a 68% response rate over all ten years. We tested the association between number of hours worked and age differences between participants and sex partners using Growth Curve Modeling. We then tested whether the number of hours worked during adolescence and young adulthood predicted sex risk behaviors (i.e., frequency of sexual intercourse, condom use, and number of sex partners), after adjusting for the difference in sex partners' ages. Results: We find working greater number of hours across adolescence and emerging adulthood is associated with having older sex partners. Furthermore, having older partners is associated with greater sexual intercourse frequency and number of partners. Having older partners also is associated with decreased condom use. We find number of hours worked to be associated with sexual intercourse frequency, after controlling for sex partners' age differences. Conclusions: From a gender and health perspective emphasizing power dynamics, this information may be extremely pertinent in the development of HIV-prevention interventions to address sexual relationship power imbalances between males and females.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess whether older sex partners increase African American youth's sex risk behaviors during the adolescent and emerging adulthood periods.
• Evaluate gender and socioeconomic differences in older sex partners' effect on African American youth's sex risk behaviors.
• Analyze African American youth's exposure to older sex partners through increased participation in the workforce.
• Prioritize the role of sex partner characteristics in HIV/STI prevention efforts, especially for young women.

Keywords: Adolescents, Sexual Risk Behavior

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered