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

项目摘要 Anu Manchikanti Gomez，博士，硕士，是一名公共卫生研究员和博士后研究员。 旧金山弗朗西斯科州立大学性别与性研究中心。戈麦斯医生的长期 职业目标是为年轻男女制定以伙伴为基础的干预措施，促进健康 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。而且她 旨在进行创新的，政策相关的研究，考虑其他环境风险因素的不利影响， 生殖健康。NICHD K99/R 00独立之路奖将提供必要的 支持戈麦斯博士接受必要的培训，以研究意外怀孕的决定因素， 夫妇层面，特别是在社会心理学、二元研究方法和干预等领域， 政策制定。这项研究的重点是18-24岁的拉丁妇女和他们的男性 伙伴2001年，美国近一半的怀孕是意外怀孕， 拉丁裔女性的出生率。此外，18-24岁的年轻女性更有可能 比其他年龄组的女性更容易意外怀孕。努力减少意外 年轻的拉丁人怀孕受到阻碍，因为他们不了解 动态，文化背景，夫妇之间的怀孕意图联合收割机，以减少有效的 使用避孕药具。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愿的影响;（2）制定文化上适当的， 夫妇水平的措施，对怀孕的矛盾心理的意图;（3）测试的协会， 随着时间的推移，怀孕意愿和与避孕药具使用的关系因素。预计这项研究 将揭示年轻拉丁裔女性及其伴侣的夫妻关系动态， 并提供独特而强大的数据，为未来的干预措施提供信息。

PROJECT SUMMARY 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.