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A new study finds that women who
witness crimes in their neighborhood or are victims of abuse are more likely to
participate in risky sexual behavior.
Jennifer Walsh, of the Miriam
Hospital’s Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine in Providence, R.I.,
and colleagues surveyed 481 women presenting at an urban STD clinic. Most
participants were African-American and disadvantaged socioeconomically. The
women were assessed for a previous history of violence as well as current
sexual risk behaviors.
Compared to the general population,
the women in the study reported higher rates of exposure to violence. The team
identified four groups of women with differing experiences of violence: 39
percent reported low exposure to violence; 20 percent were chiefly exposed to
community violence; 23 were mainly exposed to childhood mistreatment; and 18
percent experienced multiple forms of violence.
The authors found that those women
who reported experiencing multiple forms of violence and those who said they
were exposed to violence in the community had the highest levels of exposure to
sexual risk, including drug and alcohol use before sex, and lifetime number of partners.
[PNU editor’s note: The study,
“Exposure to Different Types of Violence and Subsequent Sexual Risk Behavior
Among Female Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinic Patients: A Latent Class
Analysis,” was published in Psychology of Violence (03.19.12;doi:10.1037/a0027716).]
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
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