Abstract
Introduction Youth STD/HIV information seeking and policy changes (e.g. same-sex marriage) may vary by sociocultural context. We used state-level same-sex marriage laws in the United States (US) as proxy measure for sociocultural context to examine sources of STD/HIV information among youth within different contexts. Methods We used Westlaw to collect 2013 US state-level laws related to same-sex marriage as a proxy for state sociocultural context related to STD/HIV. Same-sex marriage laws were coded as 1) prohibited -– explicitly bans same-sex marriage (n = 34), 2) not addressed – does not mention sex (n = 11), 3) recognised – explicitly permitted (n = 6). Laws were merged with data from a 2013 US survey of 15–25 year olds (n = 4017) to assess sources of STD/HIV information among youth living in different sociocultural contexts. Results Information sources for whether to have sex differed by sociocultural context. Youth living where same-sex marriage was recognised were more likely to report the following sources: doctor (54.9%, p Conclusion Readily available policies may be a useful proxy measure of sociocultural context in the field of STD/HIV prevention.
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