IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v39y1994i11p1527-1535.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The relationship of alcohol use to sexual activity in a U.S. national sample

Author

Listed:
  • Leigh, Barbara C.
  • Temple, Mark T.
  • Trocki, Karen F.

Abstract

Recent reports have indicated that the use of alcohol is related to sexual behavior (such as unprotected intercourse) that is high-risk for HIV infection. However, most of these studies have collected data from convenience samples, using measures of varying specificity. This paper describes a study designed to investigate the relationship of alcohol use to unsafe sexual activity in a representative sample of adults. Data were collected from 2058 respondents as part of a survey of a multi-stage area probability sample of the adult household population of the 48 contiguous United States. The interview instrument included measures of alcohol use, sexual activity and condom use. Logistic regression analyses showed that heavier drinkers were more likely to be sexually active, and if sexually active, were more likely to have had more than one sexual partner in the previous year. However, drinking variables were in general not significantly related to condom use. These results suggest that alcohol use may be more strongly related to lifestyle variables (general sexual activity and number of sexual partners) than to more concrete behavioral variables such as condom use. Because these data are correlational, the findings are also consistent with the notion of a general constellation of risk-taking or sensation-seeking activities that includes alcohol use and sexual activity.

Suggested Citation

  • Leigh, Barbara C. & Temple, Mark T. & Trocki, Karen F., 1994. "The relationship of alcohol use to sexual activity in a U.S. national sample," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1527-1535, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:39:y:1994:i:11:p:1527-1535
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(94)90004-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sexual activity AIDS alcohol;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:39:y:1994:i:11:p:1527-1535. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.