Childhood Sexual Abuse, Adolsecent Sexual Coercion and Sexually Transmitted Infection Acquisition Among Homeless Female Adolsecents

• NCJ Number: 188941
• Journal: Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 25 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2001 Pages: 137-148
• Author(s): John Noell; Paul Rohde; John Seeley; Linda Ochs
• Date Published: January 2001
• Length: 12 pages
• Grant Number(s): R01-A134497
• Sponsoring Agency: Ctr's for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

A study of 216 homeless adolescent females from a northwestern United States city examined the relationship between experiences of child sexual abuse, sexual coercion during adolescence, and the acquisition of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Abstract

Street outreach workers recruited the participants for a longitudinal study of STI epidemiology. The research used baseline data on childhood abuse and recent history of sexual coercion to predict physiologically confirmed STI acquisition over the subsequent 6 months. Results revealed that about 38 percent of the participants reported a history of childhood sexual abuse. Participants with this history were more likely than others to report recent sexual coercion. In turn, sexual coercion in the last 3 months was significantly associated with a higher number of sexual partners, but not with a greater frequency of intercourse or with lower rates of condom use. The number of sexual partners significantly predicted the future acquisition of an STI within 6 months. The analysis concluded that interventions to reduce risky sexual behaviors in homeless adolescent females may need to consider the impact of child sexual abuse, particularly on the number of sexual partners during adolescence. However, engagement in intercourse often resulted from coercion and was not voluntary in this population. Table and 53 references (Author abstract modified)