ighborhoods; the difference grew to 61% in 1993-1997. By contrast, in the later period, high-income neighborhoods in London had a 19% lower rate than low-income ones, and rates in Paris differed only marginally by neighborhood. In Tokyo, rates did not differ by neighborhood income level in either period. According to the analysts, "reducing disparities among neighborhood infant mortality rates will require intense targeting of high-rate neighborhoods."
1. Rodwin VG and Neuberg LG, Infant mortality and income in 4 world cities: New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo, American Journal of Public Health, 2005, 95(1):86-90.
Women and, to a lesser extent, men attending a Seattle sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic in 2002-2003 were more apt to tell a computer about sensitive behaviors than they were to tell a live interviewer.1 A total of 609 men and women between the ages of 14 and 65 agreed to take an audio computer-assisted self-interview before having their sexual history taken by a clinician. Higher proportions of women told the computer than told the clinician that they had recently had a female partner (20% vs. 12%) or engaged in oral sex (67% vs. 50%), had used amphetamines (5% vs. 1%) or had engaged in transactional sex (21% vs. 10%); a lower proportion reported STD symptoms to the computer than to the clinician (55% vs. 64%). Among men, only reports of ever having had a male partner were more common in the computerized interview than in a face-to-face situation (37% vs. 29%). Fifty-six percent of participants preferred the computerized to the clinician interview, and 49% would favor answering sexual history questions on a computer and then reviewing their answers with a clinician. The researchers conclude that computerized self-interview could help to "expand and enhance behavioral surveillance in STD clinics, standardize sexual history-taking, and...decrease costs associated with clinic visits."
1. Kurth AE et al., A comparison between audio computer-assisted self-interviews and clinician interviews for obtaining the sexual history, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 2004, 31(12):719-726.
ACCOUNTING FOR ABSTINENCE
In two interviews 18 months apart, sexually inexperienced young adolescents in Missouri expressed increasingly positive views toward having intercourse. On average, the 422 youth who reported in both 1997 and 1999 that they had not had sex gave eight reasons for abstaining at baseline, but only seven at follow-up. Significant declines were seen in the proportions reporting that they were not ready for sex (71% vs. 62%), they were waiting until they were older (69% vs. 61%) or married (59% vs. 51%), or they considered premarital sex wrong (59% vs. 51%). Additionally, parents' reactions were cited less frequently in 1999 than in 1997 (5% vs. 60%), as were embarrassment about sex (14% vs. 21%) and about the use of birth control or condoms (5% vs. 9%). Fear of pregnancy or AIDS was a motivation for eight in 10 respondents at each interview. In logistic regression analyses, teenagers with conservative attitudes toward premarital sex, males and youth who did not drink had an elevated likelihood of remaining sexually inexperienced over the study period. According to the researchers, antidrinking messages targeted to young adolescents are essential, as are booster sessions to reinforce messages about HIV and pregnancy.
1. Blinn-Pike L et al., Sexually abstinent adolescents: an 18-month follow-up, Journal of Adolescent Research, 2004, 19(5):495–511.