Sex, Drug Use Increase Risk of Teen Depression, Suicide

AbstractInvestigators have identified a number of factors that increase the risk for experiencing sexual coercion, but as yet little is known about how sexual coercion in turn affects these risk factors. Using a sample of 110 adolescents, the current study examined the hypothesis that, after an incident of sexual coercion, adolescents would exhibit increases in several behaviors known to increase risk for victimization. As predicted, after experiencing sexual coercion, adolescents reported increased externalizing symptoms, more frequent sexual intercourse and a greater total number of intercourse partners. Finally, alcohol use, drug use, and problems related to substance use increased. These findings suggest the presence of a feedback loop, in which the experience of sexual coercion leads to an intensification of the factors that initially contributed risk for coercion.

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The Perth Amboy Community Partnership for Youth: Assessing its Effects at the Environmental and Individual Levels of Analysis

International Quarterly of Community Health Education ◽

10.2190/kj04-b8cy-pxf4-rpgr ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 363-378 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Marilyn Aguirre-Molina ◽

D. M. Gorman

Keyword(s):

Drug Use ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Latino Youth ◽

Community Empowerment ◽

Community Partnership ◽

Individual Level ◽

Societal Factors ◽

The Family ◽

Increase Risk ◽

The Individual

This article describes the Perth Amboy Community Partnership for Youth (PACPY), a comprehensive community-based intervention designed to reduce risk factors for alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among Latino youth. The intervention is grounded in the principles of community empowerment and participatory education, and attempts to facilitate within the community a broad understanding of the societal factors that increase risk of drug use and related problems among young people. PACPY attempts to bring about change at both the individual level and the environmental level within the domains of the school, the family, and the community. The present article describes the types of interventions introduced through PACPY within each of these domains, and examines their impact on individual and environmental changes in the use and availability of tobacco products. We conclude with a discussion of some of the methodological issues that have arisen over the course of the evaluation, and outline the changes that have occurred in our underlying conceptual framework.

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