Drug Abuse and HIV/AIDS

Research Findings from May, 2001 Director's Report

This section lists selected summaries from NIDA funded research projects that investigate youth drug abuse and HIV/AIDS. The summaries provided were selected from recent issues of the Director's Report to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse. For a more comprehensive listing of NIDA funded projects see the Director's Report.

Variation in Health and Risk Behavior Among Youth Living with HIV

Lifetime and current health practices and risk behaviors were examined among 350 youth living with HIV (YLH) aged 14-23 years from four AIDS epicenters (72.6% male; 26.2% African American, 36.9% Latino). YLH were relatively healthy (M CD4 cells = 499), had used substantial health care and were satisfied with the care. YLH's sexual and substance-use histories indicated substantial HIV related risk acts: the median number of lifetime partners was 25 with only 8% using condoms consistently; 14.9% had injected drugs, and 61.2% had used hard drugs. Compared with females, males had more lifetime and recent sexual partners and had used more drugs. Youth who were recently sexually active (81.3%) had multiple partners. Most of the sexually active YLH used condoms consistently (81.6%). YLH who were symptomatic or had an AIDS diagnosis were likely to have recently had more seropositive sexual partners than the asymptomatic youth. Youth disclosed their serostatus to about half of their sexual partners (53.9%). YLH with AIDS used fewer hard drugs than those without an AIDS diagnosis. Health and risk behaviors of the YLH varied significantly based on their disease stage, gender, and ethnicity, suggesting the need for tailoring interventions for subgroups of YLH. Rotheram-Borus, M.J., Lee, M., Zhou, S., O'Hara, P., Birnbaum, J.M., Swendeman, D., Wright, W., Pennbridge, J., and Wight, R.G. Variation in Health and Risk Behavior Among Youth Living with HIV. AIDS Education and Prevention, 13(1), pp. 42-54, 2001.

Methods to Decrease Attrition in Longitudinal Studies with Adolescents

This article presents a summary of methods to decrease attrition in longitudinal school-based studies conducted with adolescents beginning junior high schools or middle schools. These include collection of contact information about students, additional days to collect data from absentee students, data collection in new high schools once students graduate from junior high schools or middle schools, sending questionnaires by mail, and conducting telephone or home interviews. Epstein, J.A. and Botvin, G.J. Methods to Decrease Attrition in Longitudinal Studies with Adolescents. Psychological Reports, 87 (1), pp. 139-140, 2000.