New Teen Risk Behavior Uncovered

Nearly 650,000 American
teens have exchanged sex for drugs or money, new research has revealed.
About two- thirds of them are boys.


Researchers aren't certain how many of these events are what's commonly
considered to be prostitution, because the study found that the median
number of times that youth had exchanged sex was only one. The PIRE study
is the first of its kind on this behavior among teens. It examined a
long-range, nationally representative survey of 13,000 students in 7th
through 12th grades and found that nearly 4 percent had exchanged sex for
drugs or money.


"While some teens may have engaged in sex exchange as a matter of
survival on the streets, it is possible that many have engaged in this
behavior for other reasons," said lead researcher Jessica Edwards, Ph.D., a
research scientist at PIRE Chapel Hill Center. "We've just begun to learn
about a risk behavior that hasn't been examined in the general population
of youth, and the circumstances around it are not yet clear."



Sex exchange appears to be a marker for other harmful behaviors and
negative health outcomes, Edwards said. The likelihood of exchanging sex
was greater among adolescents who had run away from home, were depressed,
and had prior drug use. Sex exchange was also associated with sexually
transmitted infections, including HIV. Fifteen percent of boys and 20
percent of girls who had exchanged sex for drugs or money said they had
been told by a doctor or nurse that they had a sexually transmitted
infection.


Now that this health risk has been exposed, more research is needed to
better understand it. "We need to understand the motivations underlying sex
exchanges, where they occur, and who the partners are," Edwards said.
"Improving our understanding of this issue is important because a
considerable number of youth have engaged in this behavior, and a lot of
serious threats to teens' health are associated with it."


The present study, which has been published online in advance of print
publication in Sexually Transmitted Infections, was funded by the National
Institute on Drug Abuse. The data are from waves I and II of the National
Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health
( cpc.unc/addhealth).


PIRE, or Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, is a national
nonprofit public health research institute funded mostly by federal science
grants and contracts with centers in eight U.S. cities.


For more information, to arrange an interview with the author, or to
obtain a copy of the study, contact Jim Gogek at (888) 846-PIRE or
jgogekpire.


Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation

cpc.unc/addhealth