14
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Sexual and drug use risk behaviors among children and youth in street circumstances in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

      AIDS and Behavior
      Adolescent, Brazil, epidemiology, Child, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, HIV Infections, transmission, Homeless Youth, Humans, Interviews as Topic, Male, Questionnaires, Risk-Taking, Sexual Behavior, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Socioeconomic Factors, Substance-Related Disorders

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPubMed
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess sexual and drug use risk in 161 children and youth in street circumstances in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Median age was 14 and 79% were male. Overall, 59% reported ever having had sex; a significantly higher proportion of males (66%) compared to females (30%). Overall, 39% reported illicit drug use in the last year, and only 1.2% reported injection drug use. In multivariate analyses, correlates of unsafe sex included younger age of sexual debut, and having a steady sex partner. Independent correlates of illicit drug use included lack of family contact, increased hours in the street daily, having had an HIV test, and older age. A high proportion of children and youth in street circumstances reported high risk sex and drug exposures, confirming their vulnerability to HIV/STD. Services Centers, such as where this research was carried out, offer an opportunity for interventions.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Comments

          Comment on this article