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Correlates of Cumulative Sexual Risk Behaviors among African American Youth Living in Public Housing

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Abstract

African American youth and especially those who reside in public housing report high rates of sexually transmitted disease (STI) risk behaviors; however, too few studies have examined the correlates of cumulative sexual risk behaviors among this population. This study recruited 298 youth ages 11 to 21 and examined to what degree factors such as age, gender, self-efficacy, substance use, negative peer norms, and delinquency were correlated with cumulative sexual risk behaviors. Major findings indicated that gender, substance use, self-efficacy, and involvement with delinquent peer networks were independent correlates of cumulative sexual risk behaviors, with gender and self-efficacy being the strongest of these factors. Collectively, these findings suggest that gendered approaches to sexual risk reduction among this population are warranted with special content and attention focused on substance abuse risk reduction, improving self-efficacy and managing negative peer influences.

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Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of interest

Dr. Von Nebbitt declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Dr. Dexter Voisin declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Dr. Nebbitt received financial support to conduct this study from the Provost Office at Howard University and the Silberman Foundation. These institutions will not gain financially or otherwise from the publication of this study.

Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of human participants in research and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. The research protocol, including informed consent, parental permission, and youth assent forms, was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at Howard University.

Informed consent was obtained from all participants over 18 years of age included in the study. Furthermore, youth assent and parental permission were obtained from all participants 17 years of age or younger included in the study.

Data used in this paper were de-identified prior to conducting the analysis and all possible identifying information on participants has been removed. This article does not contain any data that involved animal subjects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Von E Nebbitt

  2. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Dexter Voisin

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Correspondence to Von E Nebbitt.

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Nebbitt, V.E., Voisin, D. Correlates of Cumulative Sexual Risk Behaviors among African American Youth Living in Public Housing. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 3, 394–402 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-015-0143-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-015-0143-6

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