Abstract
A survey of 16-21 year old people in Somerset was undertaken to find out about their sexual behaviour prior to mounting a local education campaign on AIDS. A representative sample of 400 people, using quota sampling in 40 randomly selected electoral wards, completed a schedule structured part self administered questionnaire. Of these, 371 (92%) considered themselves heterosexual. Nearly half (47%) of the 16 year olds had engaged in sexual intercourse, rising to 89% by the age of 21. Mean frequency of sexual intercourse among the sexually active is 62 per year. The frequency of partner change decreases with increasing age for non-virgins from 2.1 for 16 year olds to 1.5 partner changes per year for 21 year olds (mean frequency 1.7 per year, ie, a new partner every 7 months). This level of sexual activity could eventually give rise to HIV prevalence rates similar to those found in Africa, i.e., 15-100 HIV antibody positive per 1000.
Full text
PDFSelected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Friedland G. H., Klein R. S. Transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus. N Engl J Med. 1987 Oct 29;317(18):1125–1135. doi: 10.1056/NEJM198710293171806. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Knox E. G. A transmission model for AIDS. Eur J Epidemiol. 1986 Sep;2(3):165–177. doi: 10.1007/BF00211527. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Moss A. R. Epidemiology of AIDS in developed countries. Br Med Bull. 1988 Jan;44(1):56–67. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a072246. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Piot P., Caraël M. Epidemiological and sociological aspects of HIV-infection in developing countries. Br Med Bull. 1988 Jan;44(1):68–88. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a072247. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]