Teen girls whose boyfriends are in a gang are nearly twice as likely to get pregnant as their peers whose boyfriends aren't gang-involved, a new study from San Francisco demonstrates.
"The significant role of partner's gang membership in increasing pregnancy risk highlights the importance of addressing the reproductive health needs of gang-involved youth," Dr. Alexandra Minnis, of RTI International in San Francisco, and her colleagues report.
The rate of teen pregnancy among Latinas is significantly higher than it is among African Americans and whites, and while the birth rate for US adolescents overall fell between 1994 and 2004, the decline was smallest among Latinas, Minnis and her team point out in the May 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
And in many urban US neighbourhoods, the researchers say, "street gangs contribute to shaping the risk environment in which sexual relationships are formed."
To investigate the influence of gangs on Latinas' pregnancy risk, they recruited 237 sexually active girls ages 14 to 19, more than three-quarters of whom were Latina. During the study's two-year follow-up, 27,4 percent became pregnant at least once.
At the study's outset, 6,4 percent of the girls said they were gang members, while 17,4 percent reported dating a gang member. A girl's gang membership did not affect her pregnancy risk over the subsequent two years, but girls with gang-affiliated boyfriends were twice as likely to become pregnant as their peers were.
If a girl or her partner wanted to have a child, or if a girl's partner was in jail, the likelihood of becoming pregnant was further increased.
While the findings did not find a link between a girl's membership in a gang and pregnancy, Minnis and her colleagues write, study participants may not have been willing to report gang membership to the interviewers. Girls who said they were gang members were also less likely to complete the study.
The higher odds of pregnancy among girls with gang-related boyfriends suggests that they are also at heightened risk of sexually transmitted diseases, Minnis and her colleagues point out.
"Integrated reproductive health prevention, therefore, is crucial," they conclude.