Condom Use Among African American Females: Testing the Theory of Gender and Power

描述(由申请人提供)：拟议的研究重点是非洲裔美国女性青少年和年轻人，这是一个在美国性传播疾病(包括艾滋病毒)发病率过高的人群。要了解为什么非裔美国女性青少年和年轻女性容易感染艾滋病毒/性传播疾病，必须考虑背景因素。性别与权力社会学理论(TGP)的公共卫生适应性提供了一个社会结构结构框架，可用于模拟持续使用避孕套等艾滋病毒/性传播疾病预防行为的背景决定因素，它是指导为年轻女性设计三种循证干预措施的主要基本理论框架之一。TGP描述了三种结构：性别分工，情感依恋和社会规范的结构，以及性别权力分工。这些都被假设为产生获得性风险和疾病的个人风险因素。本研究试图以TGP为基础，检验和验证一个结构方程模型，即获得性社会和关系风险以及个人风险因素对非裔美国女性青少年和年轻女性持续使用避孕套的直接和间接影响。这些发现将解决NIMH艾滋病与健康和行为研究部门艾滋病毒预防研究的目标，旨在更好地了解影响艾滋病毒风险的多个层面的二元、社会和结构性因素。这项研究是对Afiya期间收集的数据的二次分析，Afiya是一项针对年轻非裔美国女性的艾滋病毒预防维持干预的随机对照试验，目前由NIMH资助。部分来自TGP的行为数据是从800名年龄在15-20岁的非裔美国年轻女性中收集的。将使用具有基线数据的结构方程建模来检验选定的理论结构之间的多重关联。样本将被随机分成两个数据集；一个数据集将用于开发模型，另一个数据集将用于验证模型。 公共卫生相关性：2010年《健康人》的一个目标是增加青少年禁欲或在目前性生活活跃时使用避孕套的比例。为了更好地了解非裔美国女青少年和年轻女性的性行为，考虑社会和关系的影响是至关重要的。对性别和权力的社会结构理论如何预测避孕套使用的实证测试，可以为如何衡量这些结构之间的关联并建立模型提供洞察力，扩大这一已被广泛用于指导艾滋病毒预防干预措施设计的理论的效用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research focuses on African American female adolescents and young adults, a population that is overrepresented in rates of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, in the United States. To understand why African American female adolescents and young women are vulnerable to HIV/STDs, contextual factors must be considered. The public health adaptation of the sociological theory of gender and power (TGP) provides a framework of social structural constructs that may be used to model contextual determinants of HIV/STD preventive behavior such as consistent condom use and it is one of the major underlying theoretical frameworks guiding the design of three evidence-based interventions for young women. The TGP describes three structures: the sexual division of labor, the structure of affective attachments and social norms, and the sexual division of power. These are hypothesized to generate acquired risks and individual risk factors for disease. This study seeks to test and validate a structural equation model of the direct and indirect effects of acquired social and relational risks and individual risk factors on consistent condom use among African American female adolescents and young women based on the TGP. The findings will address the NIMH Division of AIDS and Health and Behavior Research goal of HIV prevention research aimed at better-understanding the multiple levels of dyadic, social and structural factors that impact HIV risk. This study is a secondary analysis of data collected during AFIYA, a randomized controlled trial of an HIV prevention maintenance intervention for young African American women, currently funded by NIMH. Behavioral data derived in part from the TGP is being collected from 800 African American young women, ages 15-20. Multiple associations between selected theoretical constructs will be tested using structural equation modeling with the baseline data. The sample will be randomly split into two datasets; one dataset will serve to develop the model and the other dataset will be used to validate the model. Public Health Relevance: An objective of Healthy People 2010 is to increase the proportion of adolescents who abstain from sexual intercourse or use condoms if currently sexually active. To better understand sexual behavior among African American female adolescents and young women it is crucial to account for social and relational influences. An empirical test of how the social structural theory of gender and power predicts condom use can provide insight into how to measure and model the associations among the constructs, extending the utility of a theory that has been used extensively to guide the design of HIV prevention interventions.