Ethnic identity and sexual risk-taking among African-American women enrolled in an HIV/STD prevention intervention

Abstract

Ethnic identity has been found to have a 'protective' effect against negative emotional and behavioural outcomes in adolescents of colour. The present study explored whether this effect might extend to sexual risk-taking and its antecedents in an adult sample of African-American women (n = 78). Higher ethnic identity was found to be associated with less risk-taking (measured by the number of risky sex acts engaged in during a 4 month period). Risk behavior antecedents found to be associated with ethnic identity were those reflecting motivation for the strategies of abstinence and monogamy, but not such factors as STD/HIV knowledge, motivation for condom use, or perceived behavioural skills. Future research might profitably use theory-based statistical modelling to understand the association of ethnic identity and risk-taking, and mechanisms explaining this relationship.