Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Pat W. Mosena, PhD, Options for Youth, 5646 S. Kimbark Ave., Chicago, IL 60637, 773-288-1682, mosena@aol.com and Joyce Ho, PhD, Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1740 W. Taylor St., Chicago, IL 60612.

Access to reproductive health information and services is limited in many low-income neighborhoods, and especially for adolescent males, who often get reproductive health “information” from the street where girls may be viewed as targets rather than partners in a healthy relationship. Peer Advocates for Health (PAH), a community-based program serving adolescent males on the south side of Chicago, has provided intense reproductive health training and employment experience to 87 adolescent African American males from 29 high schools. These Peer Advocates have provided information to over 5,000 other adolescents and distributed 20,000 condoms in their own communities. Significant increases in reproductive health knowledge and communication about birth control among PAH participants have been previously reported. This paper describes utilization of reproductive health services among PAH participants during the program year. When they joined the program, 89% of these young men had been to a clinic for a physical exam, but only about 20% had been for reproductive health. After six months of PAH program participation, the number of visits for condoms, STDs, birth control information, and “with girlfriend” increased (Paired t-test: t (30)= -2.16, p=.039). Young men who have had sex at intake were more likely to visit a clinic for reproductive health at 6-months (Chisq= 13.22, df=2, p=.001). The most common reason for visiting a clinic is to obtain condoms (83% of clinic goers at intake, 75% of clinic goers at 6-month). Findings should inform efforts to attract adolescent male clients to family planning and reproductive health clinics.

Learning Objectives:

• To identify components of a reproductive health program for adolescent African American males in Chicago.
• To identify characteristics of adolescent African American males associated with utilization of reproductive health clinic services.
• To better understand barriers to utilization of reproductive health services by adolescent African American male participants in the Peer Advocates for Health program.

Keywords: Male Reproductive Health,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation