Child Sexual Abuse and HIV-Related Substance Use and Sexual Risk Across the Life Course Among Males and Females

Joy D. Scheidella, Pritika C. Kumara, Taylor Campionb, Kelly Quinna, Nisha Behariec, Susan P. McGorrayd, and Maria R. Khana

The article I presented was a national longitudinal study that examined adolescent and adult health. Specifically, the study looked at the relationship between child sexual abuse and prevalence of substance use, STIs, and sex-trade workers. The study had 11,820 participants, of those participants, around 10% of females and 7% of males reported child sexual abuse. The study was largely conducted via surveys. In order to find out the rate of child sexual abuse, the survey asked: “How often did a parent or other adult caregiver touch you in a sexual way, force you to touch him or her in a sexual way, or force you to have sexual relations?” The substances looked at included marijuana, crystal meth, and prescription pain killers. STIs were measures as life-time diagnosis of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and/or trichomoniasis. The study also looked at those working is the sex trade and having sexually risky behaviors.

Results: The study found that adolescent males and females who experience child sexual abuse had increased odds of marijuana use, cocaine use, and multiple sexual partners. There was also a higher association between child sexual abuse and working is the sex trade, but it was not significant.  Marijuana was not associated with child sexual abuse in adulthood, but adults with a history of child sexual abuse did have higher rate of cocaine and crystal meth use. Men with a history of child sexual abuse were shown to have multiple sexual partners, but that was not the case in the female population after adjustment. Unlike in adolescents, adults were associated with increase sex trade work. They were not associated with higher rates of STIs.

Analysis: There were several problems with this study. Although the study had a large sample size, the method of getting data via survey has been shown not to be very reliable. People with easily lie or minimize, especially is a sensitive subject like child sexual abuse. Additionally, even if people taking the survey were looking to be completely honest, the format of each questions, effects how people respond. If the questions were worded slightly differently, it is likely that they would have gotten a completely different outcome. for example, the question the authors used to ask about childhood sexual abuse specifically asked about abuse from an adult or caregiver, but what if someone was abused by an older adolescent, or someone else that didn’t fit that criteria? It is likely that those individuals would have answered no to the question. The article stated that 10% of females reported child sexual abuse, many other sources have reported a much higher number, this correlates with the fact that survey results are not completely reliable. I still chose to present this article because even if the numbers were likely minimized, it still gave a snapshot of the effects that child sexual abuse can have on the future behavior of an individual.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.