Abstract
African Americans have the most severe burden of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) of all racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Also, HIV continues to be a serious threat to the health of the Hispanic/Latino community. For prevention purposes, the present study examined the relationship of both cannabis use and self-control with HIV risk behaviors in a sample of African American and Puerto Rican female adolescents, young adults, and adults. Among the total of 343 female participants, half were African American and the other half were Puerto Rican. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine earlier cannabis use as well as self-control and later HIV risk behaviors. High frequency of cannabis use and high self-control measured at ages 19 to 29 were positively and negatively related to having sexual intercourse with someone they just met at ages 32 to 39. Prevention programs should incorporate the role of cannabis use and low self-control as related to HIV risk behaviors. Our results may have particular utility for designing interventions focused on not only cannabis use (a risk factor) but also self-control (a protective factor) as related to HIV sexual risk behaviors.
Highlights
According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2014 [1], African Americans have the most severe burden of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) of all racial/ethnic groups in the United States (US)
We examine the linkage between cannabis use and HIV sexual risk behaviors in African American and Puerto Rican women in the fourth decade of life
The results indicated that individuals who used cannabis at ages 19, 24 and 29 were more likely to have sexual intercourse with someone they just met at age 32 to 39 (Odds Ratio: OR=1.23, p
Summary
According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2014 [1], African Americans have the most severe burden of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) of all racial/ethnic groups in the United States (US). HIV continues to be a serious threat to the health of the Hispanic/ Latino community. In 2014, new HIV diagnoses were disproportionately found among African Americans (44%) and Hispanics (24%) in the US [1]. Prior research has focused on HIV risk behaviors in gay and/or bisexual men [2,3]. A greater understanding of the longitudinal predictors of HIV risk behaviors is an important step toward the development of effective prevention programs for women
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