Citation

Deardorff J, Suleiman AB, Dal Santo TS, Flythe M, Gurdin JB, Eyre SL. Health Educ. Behav. 2013; 40(6): 646-650.

Affiliation

1University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1090198112473112

PMID

23372029

Abstract

African American young women exhibit higher risk for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, compared with European American women, and this is particularly true for African American women living in low-income contexts. We used rigorous qualitative methods, that is, domain analysis, including free listing (n = 20), similarity assessment (n = 25), and focus groups (four groups), to elicit self-described motivations for sex among low-income African American young women (19-22 years). Analyses revealed six clusters: Love/Feelings, For Fun, Curiosity, Pressured, For Money, and For Material Things. Focus groups explored how African American women interpreted the clusters in light of condom use expectations. Participants expressed the importance of using condoms in risky situations, yet endorsed condom use during casual sexual encounters less than half the time. This study highlights the need for more effective intervention strategies to increase condom use expectations among low-income African American women, particularly in casual relationships where perceived risk is already high.

Language: en