Women exposed during childhood to adverse or dangerous conditions, including physical and verbal abuse, have an increased likelihood of engaging in risky sexual behavior later in life, according to "Adverse Childhood Experiences and Sexual Risk Behaviors in Women: A Retrospective Cohort Study." The study, by Susan D. Hillis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention et al. appears in the September/October 2001 issue of The Alan Guttmacher Institute's bimonthly, peer-reviewed journal, Family Planning Perspectives.
The study shows that increased exposure to physical, emotional and sexual abuse during childhood raises women's chances of having had sex by age 15, of perceiving themselves as being at risk of HIV and AIDS, and of having had 30 or more partners. Hillis notes that this risky behavior may be an attempt by women to achieve the intimacy that was lacking in their childhood. She further observes that having grown up in families unable to provide needed protection, these women may be unprepared to protect themselves and may grossly underestimate the risks they are taking.
The analysis is based on 5,060 females' responses to a 1995 questionnaire administered to members of a managed care organization. Responses provided information about seven categories of adverse childhood experiences and their association with sexual risk behaviors. More than half of the women (59%) in the study reported one or more types of adverse experience during childhood.
The September/October issue of Family Planning Perspectives also features several other studies:
• "The Effect of Partners' Characteristics on Teenage Pregnancy and Its Resolution," by Madeline Zavodny
• "Timing of Alcohol and Other Drug Use and Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Unmarried Adolescents and Young Adults," by John Santelli et al.
• "Choice of and Satisfaction with Methods of Medical and Surgical Abortion Among U.S. Clinic Patients," by S. Marie Harvey et al.
• "Childbearing in Cohabiting Unions: Racial and Ethnic Differences," by Wendy Manning
• "The Influence of Significant Others on Australian Teenagers' Decisions About Pregnancy Resolution," by Ann Evans