Disease-specific sexual abstinence user rates: the role of science in policy making.
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Adolescent↗
Biomedical subjects
C S Haignere
Publications and source records attributed to C S Haignere.
High-risk adolescents and female condoms: knowledge, attitudes, and use patterns.
PURPOSE: To explore data on high-risk male and female adolescents' attitudes towards female condoms, compared with male condoms. METHODS: Exploratory survey research was utilized with a convenience sample of 65 high-risk adolescents at an emergency homeless shelter. A peer-led intervention was conducted and pre-test and post-test interviews explored barriers to female condom use. The intervention consisted of 15- to 30-minute small group sessions, discussing female condoms' construction; purpose of the rings; efficacy preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection (STIs); and how to lubricate, insert, and use. Content and Chi-square analyses were utilized. RESULTS: Sixty-three percent used male condoms as their primary contraceptive method; almost half (48%) said they always used male condoms, but 44% reported having sex without a male condom at least once in the 2 weeks prior to pre-test. Ninety-five percent had heard of the female condom, half 'good' and 24% 'bad' things, but only 15% had ever used one. At post-test all respondents gave reasons they might use female condoms in the future, and 77% gave reasons why they might not. Most (73%) adolescents said they would still prefer the male to the female condom. The major potential barriers to adolescents' female condom use were not having female condoms available and/or females feeling uncomfortable inserting them. CONCLUSIONS: Female condoms should be offered to adolescents as an additional choice rather than as replacements for male condoms. Further research is needed to assure access, availability, and comfort with female condoms and male participation in their use.
Adolescent↗
Closing the ecological gap: the public/private dilemma.
Numerous health behavior theories and models address human and environmental factors that affect health status. Although ecological models have called for multilevel intervention strategies, all too often health professionals remain unsure which levels of intervention to target: individual, institutional/organizational, community, public-policy or some combination of these. The decision is often influenced by general societal perceptions of how much control individuals have over health risks. These perceptions, in turn, influence health professionals' own perceptions. The question raised here is how do these perceptions of how public or private a health issue is affect the intervention levels we target? Frequently intervention levels are discussed as if they exist on a continuum, with private individual interventions at one end, and societal policies and laws at the other. This article offers a 'public/private health matrix' based on two axes, one representing individual rejectability of health risks, the other showing how publicly or privately supplied or regulated these risks are. The 10 leading causes of death and two childhood illnesses in the US are used to demonstrate how the matrix might help analyze the public/private nature of different health risks and risk-reducing strategies, and to demonstrate how such distinctions may influence the levels of intervention health professionals target.
Attitude to Health↗
Adolescent abstinence and condom use: are we sure we are really teaching what is safe?
This article reviews existing research on condom and abstinence method- and user-failure rates, and the use of this research in determining sexuality education curricula. Latex condoms effectively prevent pregnancies and most sexually transmitted diseases or infections (STIs), with method-failure rates between 0.5% and 7%, but with user-failure rates between 12% and 70%. Total abstinence presumably has a method-failure rate of zero, but research on periodic abstinence indicates user-failure rates between 26% and 86%. No researchers have attempted to establish total abstinence user-failure rates. Abstinence-only curricula evaluations have demonstrated changes in adolescents' attitudes but little change in sexual behaviors. Comprehensive sexuality education curricula have demonstrated attitudinal changes and delays in adolescents' sexual activity. Since inconsistent use of either condoms or abstinence threatens adolescents' health, this article urges more scientific research on total abstinence user-failure rates, better and clearer dissemination of research findings, and encourages funders to require educators to show thorough knowledge of research findings.
Adolescent↗
One method for assessing HIV/AIDS peer-education programs.
This study offers a new evaluation methodology for peer-education programs. Peer educators' knowledge, self-esteem, peer pressure, and the number of friends, neighbors, and relatives given HIV/AIDS information were compared before and after training using self-administered questionnaires. Significant changes were observed in knowledge, peer pressure, self-efficacy, numbers of people given condoms, number of formal and informal HIV/AIDS presentations, and numbers of HIV/AIDS discussions with friends and neighbors.
Adolescent↗
Teachers' receptiveness and comfort teaching sexuality education and using non-traditional teaching strategies.
This article reports on the comfort level of 97 eighth grade teachers using non-traditional teaching strategies in sexuality education classes. Most were comfortable teaching sexuality education and undeterred by external factors such as students' religious beliefs, lack of administrative support, or parental protest. However, a quarter to a third of teachers reported never or rarely using activities such as roleplays, small-group discussions, and problem-solving exercises. Multiple regression indicated that only gender was a significant predictor of such usage. The greatest perceived barriers to teaching sexuality education and using alternative teaching strategies were lack of materials, lack of time, and difficulty with facilitation under traditional classroom structure. Although more research is needed to better understand barriers to using alternative strategies, teachers in two focus groups (n = 19) suggested 1) restructuring classroom settings to match the demands of new teaching strategies, and 2) "experience appropriate" curricula.
Adolescent↗
Lifetime sexual behaviors among predominantly minority male runaways and gay/bisexual adolescents in New York City.
Lifetime sexual behaviors were examined among two samples of predominantly minority, male adolescents in New York City aged 12 to 18 (M = 16.3), believed to be at high risk for HIV infection: 59 runaway males in two residential shelters and 60 males attending a community agency (HMI) for gay and bisexual youths. Interviews regarding psychosexual milestones indicated that 93% of these youths had engaged in oral, anal or vaginal intercourse and/or anilingus, with a median of 11.0 female partners among runaway males and a median of 7.0 male partners among HMI males. Both groups initiated sexual activity at a relatively early mean age of 12.6 years. Each group reported a unique developmental sequence of psychosexual milestones. Consistent condom use was reported by 13% of the youths. One quarter of the youths reported involvement in prostitution. These findings detail the need for AIDS prevention programs for these youths.
Adolescent↗
The application of the free-market economic model in Chile and the effects on the population's health status.
After the military coup in 1973, probably the most dogmatic application ever of free-market economic policies was implemented in Chile. The military junta has credited the drop in infant mortality since then to the free-market model. This article explores whether lower infant mortality rates are due to improvements in the socioeconomic conditions created by the free-market, or whether they are due to state-sponsored health care services. It concludes that the socioeconomic conditions since 1973 have generally deteriorated, while government supplemental feeding programs and maternal and child health care services have increased. It appears that the free-market has not been the primary determinant of the decline in infant mortality. Rather, state intervention appears to have been more important. Other morbidity statistics, however, indicate a decline in the population's health status since 1973.
Child Health Services↗