This article describes the risk behaviors of a sample of sexually active, urban African American adolescent females, and examines the differences between adolescents who have been pregnant (ever-pregnant) and adolescents who have not been pregnant (never-pregnant). Of the 279 young women interviewed, 48% had a history of pregnancy. Logistic regression indicated that adolescents who had a history of pregnancy engaged in higher-risk behaviors than their non-pregnant peers. Adolescents who had been pregnant were more likely to have multiple sexual partners, more likely to have had sex under the influence of drugs, and more likely to have had an STD. These adolescents also were less likely to have used a condom during their last episode of sexual intercourse and less likely to use condoms every time they have sex. Our results suggest that a history of pregnancy is associated with higher-risk sexual behaviors. Moreover, for many young women, the experience of getting pregnant does not appear to decrease subsequent risky behavior. Adolescents with a history of pregnancy are a sub-group of young women who should be the focus of targeted prevention efforts.
Protecting human study subjects from risk or harm is a long-recognized imperative of ethical research. Title 45 CFR Part 46 of the US Code of Federal Regulations, known as The Common Rule, regulates research ethics for most federally-funded human research, but does not apply to research that is privately funded.
Private entities also benefit from instituting formal ethical procedures to guide the conduct of human research that they sponsor or conduct. The primary reason for undertaking such efforts is to protect study subjects from undue risk or harm, while maintaining scientific rigor. An additional benefit may be the enhanced credibility such a program may confer to the validity of industry sponsored/conductedresearch.
This paper describes a program establisihed in 2002. The ExxonMobil Health Research Ethics Program consists of five key elements that include: (1) A Health Research Ethics Committee (HREC) and (2) Formal written Guidelines; (3) A three-tiered review (4) Annual training of both HREC members and potential study investigators (5) Annual Program
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