Adjudication history and African American adolescents' risk for acquiring sexually transmitted diseases: an exploratory analysis

Little is known about sexually transmitted disease (STD) risk behavior among adjudicated African American adolescents.

The goal of the study was to compare STD-associated risk profiles of African American adolescents reporting a history of adjudication and those not reporting adjudication.

A cross-sectional survey of 304 African American adolescent males and females (aged 15-21 years) was conducted. Adolescents were recruited from primary care clinics and through outreach activities.

Twenty-six percent of the adolescents reported adjudication. After adjusting for gender, adjudicated adolescents were about 3.6 and 4.5 times, respectively, more likely than nonadjudicated adolescents to report ever having one of three STDs (gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis) or to report having one of these in the past 90 days. Reporting recent sex with someone known or suspected of having an STD was about nine times more likely among adjudicated adolescents, and they were about 2.6 times more likely than their nonadjudicated counterparts to report using drugs or alcohol during their last sexual experience and 2.2 times more likely to report frequent sex in the past 90 days.

African American adolescents with a history of adjudication may have greater risk for acquisition of STDs than their peers not reporting adjudication.