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

简介（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研究中心博士后研究员。Gomez博士的长期职业目标是为年轻男性和女性开发基于伴侣的干预措施，促进健康的关系和避孕药具的使用，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，考虑到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，使其接受必要的培训，以便在夫妇一级研究意外怀孕的决定因素，特别是在社会心理学、双重研究方法、干预和政策制定等领域。拟议的研究重点是18-24岁的拉丁裔女性及其男性伴侣。2001年，美国近一半的怀孕是意外怀孕，其中拉丁裔妇女的意外生育率最高。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。由于缺乏对夫妻关系动态、文化背景和怀孕意图如何共同降低有效避孕药具使用的理解，减少年轻拉丁裔意外怀孕的努力受到了阻碍。提出的混合方法研究将通过以下方法解决这一空白：(1)确定夫妻关系因素对怀孕意愿的影响；(2)开发一种文化上合适的、夫妻层面的对怀孕意图的矛盾心理测量；(3)检验妊娠意向及相关因素与避孕药具使用的关系。预计这项研究将揭示年轻拉丁女性及其伴侣的夫妻关系动态的各个方面，并为未来干预措施的发展提供独特而有力的数据。

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.