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Number of Sexual Partners and Associations with Initiation and Intensity of Substance Use

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Abstract

We dissected associations between initiation and intensity of substance use and number of sexual partners using pooled data from high school seniors (weighted n = 13,580) who participated in the 1999–2007 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS), a cross-sectional, nationally representative survey. In multinomial multivariable logistic regressions, number of sexual partners steadily increased as substance use intensified from never use to experimental/new user to heavy use across all substances for both male and females. Severity of substance use is more closely related to, and thus a better indicator of, higher number of sexual partners than age of substance use onset.

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Acknowledgments

This publication was made possible by funding from the KL2 RR024994—ICTS Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Career Development Program and Grant Number UL1 RR024992 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. This publication was also supported in part by a Career Development Award awarded to Dr. Cavazos-Rehg (K01DA025733) and an NIH Midcareer Investigator Award awarded to Dr. Bierut (K02 DA021237). Dr. Bierut is listed as an inventor on a patent (US 20070258898) held by Perlegen Sciences, Inc., covering the use of certain SNPs in determining the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of addiction. Dr. Bierut has acted as a consultant for Pfizer, Inc. in 2008. All remaining authors do not have a financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organizations that could be perceived as real or apparent conflict of interest in the context of the subject of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8134, 660 South Euclid, St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA

    Patricia A. Cavazos-Rehg, Linda B. Cottler & Laura Jean Bierut

  2. Biostatistics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Melissa J. Krauss

  3. Biostatistics and Department of Mathematics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Edward L. Spitznagel

  4. Health Behavior Research, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Mario Schootman

Authors
  1. Patricia A. Cavazos-Rehg
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  2. Melissa J. Krauss
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  3. Edward L. Spitznagel
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  4. Mario Schootman
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  5. Linda B. Cottler
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  6. Laura Jean Bierut
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Patricia A. Cavazos-Rehg.

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The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of NCRR or NIH.

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Cavazos-Rehg, P.A., Krauss, M.J., Spitznagel, E.L. et al. Number of Sexual Partners and Associations with Initiation and Intensity of Substance Use. AIDS Behav 15, 869–874 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-010-9669-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-010-9669-0

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