Older Partners and STD Prevalence Among Pregnant African American Teens

Abstract

Several recent studies have addressed the question of whether adolescent females who have sex with older partners have a greater risk of sexually transmitted disease (STD) acquisition. The goal was to identify differences in STD prevalence and selected measures of behavioral risk between unmarried pregnant African American adolescent females reporting sex with older partners and those reporting sex with similar-age partners. Adolescents (n = 169) were recruited during their first prenatal visit. Adolescents completed a self-administered survey and a face-to-face interview and provided urine specimens for nucleic acid amplification assays. Approximately 65% of adolescents reported that their male sex partners were ≥2 years older, while 35% reported having similar-age male sex partners. In age-adjusted analyses, adolescents with older partners were four times more likely to test positive for chlamydia (P P In resource-constrained clinical settings, one implication of these findings is that pregnant adolescents reporting older partners may be a priority for targeted delivery of partner services. More frequent screening for chlamydia may also be cost-effective for pregnant adolescents with older partners.