Associated Press (10.28.03) - Tuesday, October 28, 2003
A Mississippi State University sociologist hopes a $1.6
million National Institutes of Health grant will help
researchers determine ways to reduce the spread of STDs among
teenagers.
Through a cooperative effort with the University of Southern
Mississippi, the five-year project headed by Angela Robertson,
a research fellow at MSU's Social Science Research Center,
will focus on about 400 high-risk 12- to 17-year-olds
incarcerated at the state's Columbia Training School. "The
study will target females exclusively because girls,
especially African-American girls, are disproportionately at
risk," said Robertson.
Robertson, a former mental health counselor, theorizes that
drug and alcohol use, combined with a history of abuse, can be
significant predictors of the likelihood for contracting STDs.
In a study completed earlier this year of more than 780
juveniles at a Mississippi detention center, Robertson found
that nearly 30 percent of girls 13 and older tested positive
for either chlamydia or gonorrhea. "This is a high rate," she
noted, adding that many STDs, left untreated, can lead to
pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility and other health
issues.
In the study, a screening for seven illicit drugs found more
than 20 percent of girls and more than 40 percent of males
tested positive for at least one. Eighty percent of males and
females said they were victims of violence, and nearly a third
of the surveyed girls also reported at least one pregnancy.
The grant provides for a full-time nurse and two health
educators on-site at the training school. Participating youths
will be tracked for a year after the intervention, with
researchers collecting behavioral and biological data, said
Robertson.