A Couple-Level Approach to Preventing Unintended Pregnancy among Young Latinas

描述(由申请人提供)：Anu Manchikanti Gomez，博士，理学硕士，公共卫生研究员，旧金山州立大学性别与性行为研究中心博士后研究员。戈麦斯博士的长期职业目标是为年轻男性和女性开发以伴侣为基础的干预措施，促进健康的关系和避孕措施的使用，特别是在美国的少数民族和移民青年中。此外，她的目标是进行创新的、与政策相关的研究，考虑不利生殖健康的其他背景风险因素。NICHD K99/R00独立之路奖将为戈麦斯博士提供必要的支持，让他接受基本的培训，以便在夫妇层面上研究意外怀孕的决定因素，特别是在社会心理学、二元研究方法以及干预和政策制定领域。这项拟议的研究重点是18-24岁的拉丁裔女性和她们的男性伴侣。2001年，美国近一半的怀孕是意外的，其中拉丁裔女性的意外出生率最高。此外，年龄在18-24岁之间的年轻女性比任何其他年龄段的女性更有可能经历意外怀孕。由于缺乏对夫妇之间的关系动态、文化背景和怀孕意向如何结合起来减少有效避孕措施的了解，减少拉丁裔青年意外怀孕的努力受到了阻碍。拟议的混合方法研究将通过以下方式解决这一差距：(1)确定夫妻关系因素对怀孕意向的影响；(2)开发一种文化上适当的、夫妻层面的对怀孕意向的矛盾心理衡量标准；(3)测试怀孕意向和关系因素与随着时间的推移使用避孕措施的关系。预计这项研究将揭示拉美裔年轻女性及其伴侣特有的夫妻关系动态，并提供独特而有力的数据，为未来干预的发展提供信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Anu Manchikanti Gomez, PhD, MSC, is a public health researcher and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University. Dr. Gomez's long-term career objective is to develop partner-based interventions for young men and women that promote healthy relationships and contraceptive use, especially among minority and immigrant youth in the US. Moreover, she aims to conduct innovative, policy-relevant research that considers other contextual risk factors for adverse reproductive health. The NICHD K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award will provide the necessary support for Dr. Gomez to receive essential training for studying the determinants of unintended pregnancy at the couple level, particularly in the areas of social psychology, dyadic research methods, and intervention and policy development. The proposed research focuses on 18-24-year-old Latina women and their male partners. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the US during 2001 were unintended, with the highest unintended birth rate among Latina women. Moreover, young women between the ages of 18-24 are more likely to experience an unintended pregnancy than any other age group of women. Efforts to decrease unintended pregnancies among young Latinas have been hindered by lack of understanding of how relationship dynamics, cultural context, and pregnancy intentions among couples combine to reduce effective contraceptive use. The proposed, mixed methods research will address this gap by: (1) identifying the influences of a couple's relationship factors on pregnancy intentions; (2) developing a culturally appropriate, couple-level measure of ambivalence towards pregnancy intentions; and (3) testing the association of pregnancy intentions and relationship factors to contraceptive use over time. It is expected that this research will reveal aspects of couple-level relationship dynamics specific to young Latina women and their partners, and provide unique and powerful data to inform the development of an intervention in the future.