The study of more than 3,000 female students appears in the American
Journal of Health Behavior.
Having sexual intercourse with multiple partners increases the risk of
pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and resulting damage to reproductive
health. Other studies have shown that girls are starting to have sex at
younger ages, and an earlier start to sexual intercourse often leads to
multiple sexual partner behavior.
Donna E. Howard, Dr.P.H., and Min Qi Wang, Ph.D., of the University of
Maryland, based their study on information from the 1999 National Youth
Risk Behavior Survey. Out of the total of 15,349 high school students who
participated in the national survey, Howard and Wang focused on the 3,288
girls who reported ever having sexual intercourse.
Among these sexually experienced adolescents, Howard says, 24 percent
reported no sexual partners in the past three months, about 63 percent
had one and 13 percent had two or more recent sexual partners.
Besides fighting, drinking and substance abuse, girls with multiple sexual
partners were also likely to have had unprotected sex the last time they
had sexual intercourse, another dangerous behavior that only compounds
the risks of sex with many partners.
Sexually active girls increasingly limited themselves to just one recent
partner as they progressed through high school, she notes. Ninth graders
reported more recent multiple sexual-partner behavior, but then odds of
having more than one partner declined for girls in the 11th and 12th grades.
One possible explanation, Howard says, is that the younger adolescents
may be experimenting with their sexuality and intimacy while, by the late
years of high school, they may be involved in stable, longer-term dating
relationships.
While this may seem small encouragement to worried parents, it underscores
the necessity to examine sexual risk behaviors grade by grade. Howard says
that educating girls before ninth grade may pay off in reduced sexual activity
and its negative health consequences. Ninth grade marks an important transition
for girls, she says. Not only must they deal with a new school, but they
may also meet and date older boys, and be exposed to changing norms and
pressures about sex.
