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Youth 411: Youth in the NewsVolume 1, Number 8, December 16-31, 2006 Contents STATE WATCH
RESEARCH
GOVERNMENT
ARTICLES WASHINGTON A faith-based nonprofit dedicated to urban renewal, the Northwest Leadership Foundation, helps other charitable organizations do their jobs better. That’s especially important now that gang activity is sowing violence across the city, said executive director Dave Hillis. “Right now, there’s an opportunity to bring them together,” Hillis said recently. “It’s going to take all sectors.” To that end, Hillis said his group this year secured a federal grant that will allow the foundation to bring together 10 local groups – Tacoma Public Schools, Safe Streets, the Community Counseling Institute and Way Out Records among them – to launch new youth programs. The $900,000 grant will be paid in three annual installments of $300,000 beginning next month. “These 10 groups now become a community,” he said. “The whole issue of relationship is very important to us.” Kurt Miller is the group’s liaison to the education system. He’s also a member of the Tacoma School Board. “This presents an opportunity to look at our city and our education system,” Miller said. “We can’t just let it go away without acting on it. If we do, we’re just waiting on another time bomb.” Miller said he’s encouraged that public school principals on the East Side and South End are meeting regularly to discuss gang activity. “This is the first time the district’s been doing this,” he said. “It’s powerful.” Centro Latino Centro Latino, which advocates for Latinos across Pierce County, organized a gang-prevention summit in June to educate parents about the threat of gangs. Executive director Julio Quan said the summit amounted to a bit of “crisis intervention” – a necessary short-term response to an emerging problem. The long-term answer to Latino gangs is investment in economic opportunities and education, and the integration of Spanish-speaking people into the larger society, he said. That’s especially true for illegal immigrants, he said, because some are isolated from the community and look to gangs for “fulfillment of basic human needs.” Some Latino people won’t cooperate with police, or even call them with a problem, because they are in this country illegally and are afraid of being deported. “It is a fact that they are here, and something has to be done,” Quan said. “This up-surge that people are talking about has roots. It is not coming out of the blue.” To that end, Centro Latino has hosted workshops for Latino business owners and others who want to open their own businesses, Quan said. Centro Latino officials are creating after-school programs that teach children responsibility to family, the Latino community and the larger society, he said. The agency also is pushing its English-as-a-second-language programs and encourages foreign-born Latinos to seek U.S. citizenship. Centro Latino also is partnering with as many local groups as it can, he said. “All of us have to see the danger is there, and we have to work together,” Quan said. African American groups Two weeks after the Tacoma City Council made an emergency appropriation of $500,000 for a police emphasis on gangs, members of the Black Collective, Tacoma Urban League, Tacoma Ministerial Alliance and other African American groups fired off a letter to City Hall. In it, they lamented the chronic high unemployment rates among young black males and Latinos. They disputed contentions that gang violence is “ravaging” the nation, citing a U.S. Department of Justice report that showed only 7 percent of homicides in 2002 were attributed to gang activity. They pointed out that prison spending outpaced higher education spending over the past two decades. They concluded with this: “The time has come for action on these matters. … Inciting fears and promising to crack down on mythical threats does not serve the public. Gangs are a symptom of social distress and $500,000 emergency funding to the Tacoma Police Department is ill equipped to address the underpinnings of crime.” Representatives met with the City Council on Aug. 1 to discuss creating a comprehensive plan for addressing the gang activity and its underlying causes. In October, the group presented a plan to the City Council and requested money to implement it next year. Called the Jail Boycott Campaign, the plan proposes programs aimed at middle and high school students as well as young adults that stress community engagement, cultural enrichment, counseling services, parental involvement, and rights and responsibilities. A few weeks later, the Black Collective sent another letter to the City Council, requesting $500,000 to implement the program. Thomas Dixon, president emeritus of the Urban League, has been heavily involved in negotiations with the city. “We know what we’re talking about. We know what we’re doing,” Dixon said in a recent interview. “I don’t know what their intention is, but our hope is that they allocate the $500,000 to us.” A Nov. 15 City Council staff analysis concluded the Black Collective’s proposal did not include enough detail for “an adequate evaluation,” so that seems unlikely. East Side Neighborhood Council The East Side Neighborhood Council organized a crime-prevention fair in August. Nearly 500 people showed up to share food and learn about gang-prevention techniques, Cambodian culture and the best ways to clean up the neighborhood, among other things. The event was a great rallying point for the community and helped to energize residents concerned about a recent spate of gang violence surging through the neighborhood, said Edwina Magrum, chairwoman of the neighborhood council’s Public Safety Committee. But big splashes aren’t the sole answer, Magrum said. Smaller, sustained efforts are important, too, she said. Things like encouraging neighbors to get to know each other and form even informal block groups, like updating the council’s Web site regularly so timely information is available to residents, like trying to organize Christmas caroling during the holiday season. A group of homeowners near 34th and McKinley recently gathered to make Christmas wreaths to hang on their doors, she said. “What these kinds of things do is they build community,” said Magrum. Building community can be a challenge on the East Side because the area is so ethnically and culturally diverse, she said. “Part of our challenge is whatever we do has to be culturally appropriate,” Magrum said. “There are a lot of kids with feet in two cultures.” Magrum said recent efforts by police – especially Lt. Kathy McAlpine, who oversees the gang unit – and community leaders will make a difference only if residents take an active part in gang-prevention measures. “It takes a coordinated, comprehensive response,” she said.
OHIO One is 18 years old. Barely a legal adult, he likes to cruise by Scott High School at the last bell, hanging out a car window to wave at other teens from his neighborhood. The other is 31. Charged with prostitution at least 124 times since he began streetwalking at age 15, he worries what the future holds for a man with his past. But both men - arguably Toledo's two most notorious male prostitutes - have this in common: Each was just a teen dressed in drag along what they call downtown Toledo's "ho stroll" the first time an older man paid him for sex. "I found that I could dress like a female and make more money than the girls," said "Kia," who at 18 has been charged seven times for prostitution during his five years working the streets. "When I was younger," said 31-year-old Angus Blaze, whose five o'clock shadow seemed at odds with the feminine sweep of his long blond bangs and ponytail, "I would just look pretty and jump in cars." It was easy money, which both often traded for crack. Men could buy sex from Kia for as little as $15. "I do bargains, honey, I do deals," said the teen. An FBI investigation known as "Innocence Lost" last year established Toledo as one of the country's top exporters of teen prostitutes. Agents described highly organized networks of pimps who rotated young girls and women around truck stops and hotels across the country. But a year after those indictments were unsealed, teen male streetwalkers continue to work the streets of Toledo virtually undetected. "When you look for it, you find it. I don't think we ever looked for it," said Lucas County Juvenile Court Judge James Ray. And that's not just Toledo. The Polaris Project combats international human trafficking. Its Ohio coordinator is Kathleen Davis. And if there's not much data about girls in the sex trade, there's even less about boys, she said. "It's an issue that needs to be addressed, but no one does. Maybe it's because we tend to think about girls and women as being vulnerable. We don't want to admit boys end up in the same situation," said Ms. Davis. In fact, it's unclear just how many boys work the streets of Toledo - or any other city. Local court officials know of some half-dozen boys working the streets, an estimate echoed by Kia and Blaze. "We knew about some individual cases," Judge Ray said, "but we never looked for [any patterns]." Police stepped up enforcement this year against prostitutes, doubling their arrests of females over last year. During the same period, vice officers said they found no underage males. Getting in Holding an apple-green purse and dressed in skin-tight jeans, Kia sat in the backseat and offered a view of the city most Toledoans don't see. "Make a left here, sweetie," he said at the corner of Woodruff and Ashland avenues. "This is the little loop the police ride around. They be out daytime, night, undercover." Bancroft, Ashland, Woodruff, Junction, Nebraska, City Park, Cherry, Lagrange - portions of all these streets, he said, are "ho strolls." "Now, on the east side," he added, "you've got East Broadway, Main Street [and]… little streets the police don't even know about." Kia, who rode and talked with The Blade on the condition his real name not be used, walked the streets side-by-side with girls and women. He takes his street name from the first time he accepted money for sex, a night when he jumped into a stranger's idling Kia sedan on Ontario Street and got out a short time later $60 richer. "We go wherever the females are because we know we can get [johns] better than them, because we can make ourselves up to look better than them. Wherever you see girls, you might see one or two boys." Because he only sells oral sex, he said, many johns don't realize his gender. Those who do, he added, often won't admit it's another male they want. They pretend to be surprised, but Kia believes he knows better: "No, baby," he tells them, "you're looking for me." Those who work with these teens say boys with sexual-identity questions can end up on the streets after being forced out of their homes. Ohio native Craig Bowman is executive director of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, but for many years ran a Washington-based center for gay youth. It wasn't unusual, he said, "to arrive at work in the morning to find a kid asleep on the porch because they got beat up at home or were thrown out." Even if gay teens aren't kicked out by their families, home life can still be tough. Since Kia's mother shot a man in the head and went to prison several years ago, he's lived with a relative he said he loves, but who "talks about me like a dog." "She calls me all types of names and stuff … 'Don't put your mouth and your hands on my food, you been out there turning tricks. I don't want you in my house.' " Gay or transgendered teens, Mr. Bowman said, are among the most at risk for "survival sex" - turning tricks for money, drugs, or simply food and a place to sleep. Blurred purpose Heterosexual boys also prostitute themselves to male clients, experts said, but they're more commonly found hustling in large cities that are runaway meccas. And that blurs the definition of prostitution. David Finkelhor is a sociology professor and director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center. In 2004, he analyzed national crime data for the U.S. Justice Department to glean what he could about juveniles in the sex trade. He defines prostitution as sex exchanged for cash or "another marketable commodity, such as drugs." "If it's for a place to stay, not so much," he said, although "that doesn't mean those kids aren't being exploited." Using sparse and admittedly outdated national data, he found that law enforcement identified 229 juvenile prostitutes, mostly in larger cities, from 1997 to 2000. But chief among his conclusions about underage prostitution is this: There simply isn't enough data to draw many conclusions. Most cities, including Toledo, don't track such arrests. Even those that do often fail to report such basic information as a prostitute's age. Plus, police don't always agree on how to handle young hookers, male or female. Where one cop sees a teen criminal, another sees an underage victim. After decades as a youth probation officer and now administrator of Lucas County's juvenile lock-up, Tony Garrett knows many of the area's most troubled teens. Some are boys like Kia: open about not only their sexual orientation and preference for dressing as a female, but also their involvement in prostitution. And then there are the boys in detention who have sold sex mainly to survive. The common denominator, said Mr. Garrett, is that they've been abused, neglected, or rejected at home. "They come in as victims," he said. Nancy Carroll sometimes sees the same thing. She's the medical director of Connecting Point, a local agency for troubled or runaway kids. Caseworkers there know many kids who spend days, weeks, and even months on the run, yet somehow remain clothed and fed. "Isn't it prostitution if you're having sex for some kind of reward?" she said. In Cuyahoga County, Edmund Stazyk asked much the same question. A researcher for the Institute for Health and Social Policy at the University of Akron, he surveyed 1,847 juveniles in detention between 2002 and 2005. Of those youths, he said, 80 reported exchanging sex for money, alcohol, drugs, or simply "to survive." Wanting out At 31, Angus Blaze has exchanged money for sex for half of his life. He said that when he entered the juvenile justice system more than 15 years ago, authorities treated him neither as criminal nor victim. They just didn't know what to do with a transgendered boy who would gladly have undergone a sex change, if only he could have afforded it. Juvenile officials remember him vividly even today. He was the kid in handcuffs and heels. "They thought I was crazy, and they sent me to Charter Hospital," said Blaze, whose rap sheet began at 9 years old and included a dozen different offenses. "I kept telling them I wasn't crazy, [prostitution] was just something that I wanted to do." But now, he said, he wants out. During a recent fight with another male prostitute, Blaze allegedly slammed the other man's head with a steam iron, and now faces a felonious assault charge. "It used to really do something for me, getting prettied up and getting in a car with somebody … When you're almost killed a couple of times, it's not so much fun anymore," he said during a recent interview at the jail, where a pair of nearby deputies occasionally snickered while listening in. Kia, meanwhile - whose lip was split in a recent scuffle with the only pimp he said he's worked for - also wants out. "I haven't been ho'ing for a month or two. I'm about to go back to school and rehab and do something with my life," he said. The last time he took money for sex, he said, he got $200 to "party overnight" at a Reynolds Road motel. Asked what he'd like to do instead, Kia couldn't quite come up with an answer. Not two hours later, he was on a cell phone. You know where to meet me, he cooed to a man he described as "an original friend," a long-time regular. He walked around a corner into the parking lot of an Old West End church. A white pickup truck emerged from a nearby alley. Kia climbed in.
KANSAS The Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition (TFKC) and TASK, the statewide youth movement against Tobacco, recently received a grant from the Sunflower Foundation for a “Smokeless Does Not Mean Harmless” project to increase youth knowledge and reduce usage of spit tobacco in Kansas. To achieve these goals TFKC will engage youth in implementing grassroots and media strategies through min-grants for youth groups and spit tobacco summit. Kansas currently has a higher than average use of spit tobacco. According to the 2005 Kansas Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 17.4 percent of high school males report currently using spit tobacco. The estimated national prevalence is 13.6 percent among high school males. According to the 2002 Kansas Youth Tobacco Survey approximately one out of every three youths do not know that smokeless tobacco is not a safe alternative to cigarettes. To help reduce these prevalence statistics “Smokeless Does Not Mean Harmless” mini-grants of up to $5,000 will be awards to established youth groups in Kansas. Grant activities will focus on youth empowerment and support of local youth groups; community awareness and mobilization on the issue of spit tobacco; media and counter-marketing to reduce spit tobacco use; and policy initiatives for tobacco-free county fairs, rodeos, sporting events and other public events. Youth groups associated with schools, churches, teen centers, community groups or other agencies can obtain application information from TASK web site at www.kstask.org. Grant proposals must be submitted by Jan. 19, 2007. Funding for this project was provided by the Sunflower Foundation: Health Car of Kansans, a Topeka-based philanthropic organization with the mission to serve as a catalyst for improving the health of Kansas. This project involves collaboration between the Sunflower Foundation, the Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition Use Prevention Program of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and TASK. The Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition is a statewide alliance of health, education, parent, youth, law enforcement and other civic organization and individuals. TFKC advocates for laws, policies and funding of effective programs that will result in significant reductions in tobacco use and addiction, especially among children and high-risk groups. The coalition’s major goals are to prevent children from beginning a lifelong addiction to tobacco, to help those who want to quit smoking, to prevent non-smokers from exposure to secondhand smoke, and to protect and assist those populations disparately affected by tobacco use.
CALIFORNIA On the heels of three Temecula Valley High School students being sent to the hospital after overdosing on Robitussin caplets comes a government study finding that more and more teens across the country are turning to over-the-counter cough and cold medicine to get high. In response, Temecula officials are quick to point out that there is no proof the trend is prevalent in the city, but are beefing up efforts to educate students on the dangers of the medicines, as well as reaching out to area teens as part of the city's ongoing "youth master plan" development. Temecula police Sgt. Jim Adams, who oversees police officers assigned to Temecula Valley Unified School District campuses, said officers this month added information to student presentations on the effects and long-term harm caused by abusing nonprescription cold medicine. He said that while the Temecula Valley High incident is the first time officers have encountered this type of overdose on a campus, it's important students understand the damage it can cause. He said he is also asking officers to ask students whether they think their friends are abusing cold medicine. "It may be something we are not seeing," Adams said. On Dec. 11, three Temecula Valley High School students were sent to the hospital after they started vomiting on campus. Adams said an investigation uncovered the students, two boys and one girl, ages 17 to 18, had each taken more than 100 Robitussin caplets over the course of three days. The students' parents picked them up from the hospital later that day, Adams said. They could face suspension from school as well as charges of being intoxicated in public, the sergeant said. "Two of the three said they learned about it on the Internet and tried it," Adams said of the students' overdose. Apparently they are not the only ones doing so. A government study released last week found that while marijuana and other illicit drug use among teens is down, as many as one in every 14 high school seniors said they used cold medicine "fairly recently" to get high. The "high" is caused by ingesting a large amount of dextromethorphan, or DXM, a common active ingredient found in many cough medications, according to The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a nonprofit coalition of medical and educational professionals. DXM abusers describe different "plateaus" ranging from mild distortions of color and sound to visual hallucinations, "out-of-body" sensations and loss of motor control, the partnership's Web site states. Short-term effects of DXM abuse can include dizziness, blurred vision, abdominal pain, vomiting, rapid heartbeat and disorientation. Serious side effects can include the suppression of the central nervous system, which can cause the victim to stop breathing. This year marks the first year the government tracked the frequency of teens who reported getting high from over-the-counter medicine for coughs and colds. There is no comparison data. "A national snapshot with what's going on with youth drug abuse may not be applicable for one specific community," said Temecula Mayor Chuck Washington. "I am not sure that is reflective of what is going on with Temecula's youth." Nevertheless, city and school district officials are working together to create a "youth master plan," in which Temecula leaders will take the pulse of the city's adolescents, as well as find ways to keep them active, healthy and engaged in positive lifestyle choices, Washington said. "A kid that's downing cough syrup, I am not sure it's just because they are bored," he said. "There may be a much deeper problem. But it brings to light a good point that we would be doing a disservice to the master plan ... if we didn't recognize teens face their own unique challenges." Therefore the process of creating the youth master plan, in which city leaders will investigate and discuss the state of the city's young adults, may be as important as the final document itself, he said. The City Council is poised to approve a consultant to help guide the process next month, he said. "It will build a foundation for providing resources that can help kids," the mayor said.
LGBT YOUTH A survey of LGBT teenagers has found that 70 percent said most people they knew were aware of their sexual orientation, but only 35 percent reported that their doctor knew. The survey by the RAND Corporation and UCLA was released this month and based on a survey of 131 participants at the Models of Pride Youth Conference in 2003. Dr. Garth D. Meckler, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics with the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon said the study is not necessarily representative of all LGBT youth, because of the nature of the conference - a forum on empowerment for gay youth. Still, he said that the survey results surprised researchers because of the low number of respondents who were out to their medical practitioners. “We knew that the sample that we chose was going to be a very ‘out’ sample,” Meckler said. “We figured they would have a higher disclosure rate than most youth, and yet, despite being out to almost everyone in their lives, only 35 percent had told their doctor about their sexual orientation.” The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the Society for Adolescent Medicine all recommend that physicians discuss sexuality with all adolescents and provide nonjudgmental communication about sexual orientation. This is important because if a physician is aware of an adolescent patient’s sexual orientation, the doctor can offer appropriate health education and counseling, identify individual risk, and perform targeted screening tests and treatment, Meckler said. Dr. Mark A. Schuster, senior author of the study and director of health promotion and disease prevention at RAND Health, said the study "is a reminder to physicians who take care of teens to try to create a comfortable, safe environment for young people to be open about their orientation, as well as other aspects of their sexuality.” Schuster is also a professor of pediatrics and public health at UCLA. Ninety percent of the teens had been to see a doctor in the past two years, and nearly two-thirds had gone within the past 12 months. But despite the fact that 66 percent thought it was very or somewhat important that their doctor know their sexual orientation in order to provide the best health care possible, only 35 percent said their physician knew their sexual orientation. Of those teens whose physician knew their sexual orientation, only 21 percent said their doctor had raised the topic. “One of the strongest predictors of whether or not the teens disclosed their sexual orientation was whether the physician had discussed sex with them at all,” Meckler said. “Very few physicians were regularly discussing sexuality, even though sex is one of the major developmental challenges and health risks at that age.” Physician bias also may play a role, Meckler said. Doctors are human beings, too, and “even though we have become a more open society in general, I think there’s a lot of stigma around non-heterosexual orientations.” Other reasons the teenagers gave for not disclosing their sexual orientation included: the fact that their parents were in the exam room with them; fear that the doctor would tell their parents their orientation; embarrassment; and fear that their doctor would disapprove. Schuster said doctors are supposed to let teens and their parents know up front that part of the examination will include time when the teen can talk to the doctor without a parent being in the room. “We want them to have a private time when they can open up, and discuss sex, drugs, violence, problems with their parents, anything,” said Schuster, a pediatrician. Sixty-four percent of the teens said physicians should “just ask me” about their sexual orientation, but Meckler and Schuster said this might not be the best tactic for teens who are not open about their sexual orientation. “Doctors can create a safe environment by not assuming the teen is heterosexual,” Schuster said. “Rather than ask a boy if he’s dating any girls, we should be open to all possibilities. That will send a message to a gay teen that this is a doctor who understands sexual orientation. It will also send a message to all teens that this is a doctor who will likely be comfortable talking about whatever the teen wants to discuss.” Putting lesbian, gay and bisexual literature in the waiting rooms and posting a sign indicating that the office does not discriminate and is a safe place to discuss any and all health concerns confidentially are other things doctors can do. Schuster said. Teens also reported that they would be more likely to disclose their sexual orientation if they were assured the doctor would not put it on their charts or tell their parents.
GEORGETOWN STUDY Youth exposure to alcohol advertising on television increased 41 percent from 2001 to 2005, and industry reforms are overwhelmed by the historic increase. Most of the growth could be traced to an historic increase in alcohol advertising on cable television, particularly by distilled spirits companies, according to a new study released by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at Georgetown University. The report, "Still Growing After All These Years: Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on TV 2001-2005", also shows that the tighter standard for alcohol ad placements - a 30 percent maximum for underage audiences of programs or publications carrying alcohol - adopted by alcohol industry groups in September 2003 has been overwhelmed by the growth of alcohol advertising on television. "More spending on television, especially on cable, translates into kids seeing more and more alcohol ads," said David Jernigan, executive director of CAMY. "Twenty state attorneys general and the Institute of Medicine have said the alcohol industry needs to do a better job of shielding our kids from its advertising." Los Alamos County DWI Program Coordinator David Sims said this morning that the alcohol industry doesn't waste their money. "They know that their ads are effective in attracting new customers to buy their products," Sims said. "The short-term cash value of underage drinking to the alcohol industry was $22.5 billion in 2001 and that was 17.5 percent of total consumer expenditures for alcohol." Sims furnished those statistics from an article written by Susan E. Foster, MSW; Roger D. Vaughan, Ph.D.; William H. Foster, Ph.D,, and Joseph A. Califano, Jr, LLB found in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a monthly professional medical journal published by the American Medical Association. CAMY's analysis of 1.4 million alcohol ads placed on broadcast, cable and local television at a cost of nearly $4.7 billion between 2001 and 2005 resulted in the following findings:
In early December, Congress passed legislation requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to report annually on rates of youth exposure to media messages encouraging and discouraging alcohol use. "Despite the industry's efforts, youth exposure to alcohol advertising on television is moving in the wrong direction," Jernigan said. "Underage drinking is our biggest youth drug problem, and studies have repeatedly found that the more alcohol ads kids see, the more likely they are to drink. More effective ad placement standards and ongoing, independent monitoring of alcohol industry practices will help parents and policymakers make certain that our kids are not overexposed to alcohol advertising."
STD’S A new study says even though Blacks ages 18-26 are practicing safer sex than their White counterparts, they still are “nearly 25 times more likely to be infected than White young people engaging in the same behavior.” The study, titled “Sexual and Drug Behavior Patterns and HIV/STD Racial Disparities: The Need for New Directions,” shows Black youth in this age group aren’t drinking, smoking or using drugs as much as Whites their age, but statistically they have a greater chance of having sex with someone who has an STD because the prevalence is so high in the Black community. “The interesting thing about the paper is that it’s saying for African-Americans, it’s not about your behavior. It’s about probably you’re partner’s behavior and whether your partner has a sexually transmitted infection,” said the study’s lead author Denise Hallfors. Hallfors, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Chapel Hill, N.C., said her findings were based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescents. Nearly 9,000 young people, Black and White, were surveyed in 1995 and data was collected again in 2001. In addition to asking the young people about their sexual behavior, Hallfors said they were also tested for STDs. Then, researchers classified the participants in 16 different behavior “clusters” ranging from what Hallfors said was, “everything from never had sex, never did any substances, to people who sell sex for money.” She said for young Blacks who tended to have the least risky behavior—fewest sexual partners and little or no drug or alcohol use—the chances of them catching an STD was eight to 10 times higher. “For African-Americans even in the lowest risk, most conventional group—instead of 3 percent for Whites, it was 20 percent that had some kind of HIV or STD,” Hallfors said. This news was especially disturbing to 22-year-old Howard University student Shari Logan. “Immediately I thought that the odds are always against us as a young, African-American. You’re trying to do what’s right and you’re saying, ‘Okay I’m not going to be stupid and have sex with everyone, I’m still just going to kind of play it safe and use a condom’ and yet you’re still—you’re chances are greater? So I thought wow, what can you do except maybe just complete abstinence?” Jennifer Kates, Vice President and Director of HIV Policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation, said Logan is right and that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to prevent STDs. “The Centers for Disease and Control, National Institutes of Health and most organizations recommend if you choose to have sex, use a condom correctly every time. So the message (of the study) is not a message that what you’re (Black youth) doing is not what other young people might be doing sexually, it’s that if you choose to have sex you have to have safer sex. The chances of a Black young person coming into contact with somebody who’s HIV positive when they have sex are higher,” Kates said. Hallfors said there were a number of reasons why it’s easier for a young Black person to come across a partner with an STD. “African-Americans have sex with other African-Americans for the most part, Whites have sex with Whites for the most part. So that combination of segregated sexual networks and then African-Americans there’s more of a crossing over between high risk groups and low risk groups and the combination of those two things tends to make for higher rates of STDs.” She also said a disproportionate number of African-American men who are incarcerated and going back and forth from the community to jail, does have an impact, as well as the male-to-female ratio among African-Americans. “There’s too few men for the number of women. And what that does is it encourages multiple partners for men—concurrent partners—and those kinds of things are very risky when it comes to sexually transmitted diseases,” Hallfors said. Jennifer Augustine is the director of the HIV/STI division for Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based organization that according to its Web site, “champions efforts to help young people make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health.” She said she’s encouraged by the fact that young, Black people as individuals are engaging in less risky sexual behavior, but they have to take it one step further. “They also (need to) go that next step of talking and communicating with their partner to asses what’s their past sexual history. Who have they engaged in sexual activity with? Have they always used a condom or other means of protection when having sex? Have they practiced unsafe sex?” She said having these kinds of discussions prior to sexual activity can also improve the sad statistics. “It really goes to show that while you can do things as an individual to protect your own behavior, you really need to know what is going on with your partner as well and kind of what’s going on in the community.” While Augustine applauds young Blacks for engaging in less risky behavior, Logan says it still doesn’t comfort her. “We’re still at risk,” she said. “It just makes me think gosh, how great is STDs and AIDS in our community that even when you’re not doing it you’ll still get infected? So it doesn’t make me feel that much better, it just makes me more aware of how sexually active we are as a whole.” Both Kates and Hallfors agree that there is a need for a massive campaign to get people in the Black community tested. Kates said the Kaiser Family Foundation has done a number of media campaigns with Black Entertainment Television over the years to reach out to this vulnerable group. Hallfors said providing universal and free testing to the people who need it most at the most accessible locations like local churches, beauty salons and barber shops, was among the list of recommendations to policymakers. She had another recommendation, this time to young, Black people: “If you’re an African-American, and if you’re at all sexually active, you should not think ‘Hey my behavior is very conventional, I go to church every Sunday, I don’t have lots of partners, I don’t do drugs or drink alcohol.’ That doesn’t mean you’re safe. Because if you’ve ever had sex with somebody… the rates are higher.”
ABUSED OR NEGLECTED CHILREN A new study followed individuals who were abused or neglected during their childhood to see if they were at higher risk for major depression when young adults. Although child abuse has been linked to depression in clinical populations and community surveys, the new research, a prospective longitudinal study, followed individuals from childhood until young adulthood. Researchers found people who were abused and neglected during childhood did have a higher risk of major depression when they become young adults. The study is published in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. Cathy Spatz Widom, Ph.D., then of the New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, and now of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, and colleagues conducted a prospective study to determine whether abused and neglected children were at elevated risk of major depressive disorder (MDD) and psychiatric illness, compared with matched control subjects, when followed up into young adulthood. The study included 676 children with substantiated cases of physical and sexual abuse and neglect before the age of 11. They were matched based on age, race, sex, and approximate family social class with 520 non-abused and non-neglected children. All were followed up into young adulthood (average age: 28.7). “The current results show that childhood physical abuse was associated with increased risk for lifetime MDD,” the authors write. “We also provide new evidence that neglected children are at increased risk for depression as well.” Child abuse and neglect were associated with a 51 percent increased risk for current MDD in young adulthood. Children who were physically abused had a 59 percent increased risk of lifetime MDD. Those who experienced multiple types of abuse had a 75 percent increased risk of lifetime MDD. The risk of current MDD was 59 percent higher for those who were neglected. Childhood sexual abuse was not associated with an elevated risk of MDD. “However, childhood victims of sexual abuse reported significantly more depression symptoms than controls,” the authors point out. “In addition, these findings reveal that onset of depression began in childhood for many of the children,” they write. “Our age-at-onset findings reinforce the need to intervene early in the lives of these abused and neglected children, before depression symptoms cascade into other spheres of functioning.”
TOBACCO PREVENTION Like other recent surveys, the 2006 Monitoring the Future Survey released today by the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows that the nation's progress in reducing youth smoking has stalled or slowed to a crawl. There is no question that we know how to significantly reduce youth smoking, as evidenced by the fact that smoking has declined by more than half among 8th and 10th graders and by more than 40 percent among 12th graders over the past decade. However, for the third year in a row, the survey finds no statistically significant change in smoking rates for any of the three age groups (although there was a small, statistically significant decline for all three age groups combined). This survey is another clear warning that the nation's progress in reducing smoking is at risk unless elected officials at all levels redouble efforts to implement proven measures to reduce tobacco use. At the state level, these solutions include higher tobacco taxes, increased funding for tobacco prevention programs, and laws requiring smoke-free workplaces and public places. At the federal level, this survey is a timely reminder to the incoming Congress that one of its early priorities should be to pass long-overdue legislation granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products, including the authority to crack down on tobacco marketing and sales to kids. Congress first debated this issue almost a decade ago, but has failed to act despite the fact that tobacco use remains the nation's leading preventable cause of death, killing more than 400,000 Americans every year, and despite evidence that the tobacco companies continue to target our children. The public overwhelmingly supports granting the FDA authority over tobacco, and the Senate in 2004 voted 78 to 15 to pass this legislation, but House leaders blocked its passage. By finally granting the FDA authority over tobacco, the new Congress can take a truly historic step to protect our children and the nation's health. The evidence that tobacco marketing influences kids to smoke is powerful and growing all the time. A study published in the December 2006 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that exposure to tobacco marketing and to pro-tobacco depictions in films, television and videos more than doubles the odds that children under 18 will become tobacco users. In an August 2006 ruling that the tobacco companies have violated civil racketeering laws, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler found that "Defendants' marketing is a substantial contributing factor to youth smoking initiation" and that "Defendants continue to engage in many practices which target youth." Since the 1998 state tobacco settlement, total tobacco marketing has more than doubled to at least $15.4 billion a year -- more than $41 million each day -- according to the latest tobacco marketing reports of the Federal Trade Commission. The CDC has attributed the stalling or slowing of youth smoking declines to this dramatic increase in tobacco marketing at the same time that states have cut funding for programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. States cut funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs by 28 percent between 2002 and 2005, from $749.7 million to $538.2 million. While total funding has increased to $597.5 million in the current 2007 budget year, only three states -- Maine, Delaware and Colorado -- currently fund such programs at minimum levels recommended by the CDC, while 33 states and DC spend less than half the CDC minimum or provide no funding. The states lack excuses for their failure to do more. There is conclusive evidence that these programs work, and given the record $21.7 billion that the states will collect in tobacco tax and tobacco settlement revenues this year, there is no lack of resources to implement them. At the national level, the American Legacy Foundation has also had to reduce its successful truth(R) anti-smoking media campaign because most of its funding under the 1998 state tobacco settlement ended after 2003. Other recent surveys, including the CDC's 2004 National Youth Tobacco Survey and 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, have also found that youth smoking declines have stalled or slowed. Similarly, the CDC's most recent survey of adult smoking found that 20.9 percent of U.S. adults smoked in 2005, the same rate as in 2004. This is the first time the adult smoking rate has not declined since 1997, when 24.7 percent of adults smoked. The good news in today's survey is that youth smoking rates have declined dramatically from peak levels in the mid-1990s. Smoking rates (those reporting having smoked in the past month) have declined by 58.6 percent among 8th graders (from 21 percent in 1996 to 8.7 percent in 2006), by 52.3 percent among 10th graders (from 30.4 percent in 1996 to 14.5 percent in 2006), and by 40.8 percent among 12th graders (from 36.5 percent in 1997 to 21.6 percent in 2006). The percentage of 12th graders who have ever smoked a cigarette has declined from a high of 65.4 percent in 1997 to 47.1 percent in 2006, the first time in this survey that the number has fallen below 50 percent. These declines in youth smoking represent a truly remarkable public health success story that will deliver benefits to the nation's health for generations to come. But the battle is far from won. Too many of our children still become addicted to a product that will sicken and prematurely kill many of them, and the tobacco companies' aggressive marketing could cause a reversal of progress unless we redouble efforts to implement proven measures to reduce smoking. Our challenge today is to resist complacency and summon the political will to combat the tobacco epidemic as aggressively as the tobacco companies continue to market their deadly and addictive products.
NEW YORK The holiday season is often pegged as a time to remember the less fortunate. That’s why the City Council passed an initiative Monday aimed at helping the most vulnerable of New York’s homeless: the youngest. Homeless youth often live lives riddled with petty crime, prostitution and violence, and are at high risk for rape, abuse and AIDS infection. The City Council’s initiative earmarks nearly $2.7 million for emergency and more long-term housing for homeless youth in the five boroughs, and for after-school programs. While estimates on Brooklyn’s homeless youth population weren’t immediately available, the City’s Department of Youth and Community Development devotes around 40 percent of its homeless youth program funding — $8.5 million — to Brooklyn. Facilities it funds include the Better Brooklyn Community Center at 900 Fulton Street and five other residential programs which include specialized services for young parents, Orthodox Jewish young women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths. “It is unimaginable that in the year 2006, the wealthiest city in the nation could allow thousands of its youth to sleep on the streets,” said Councilmember Lew Fidler in a statement. Fidler spearheaded the initiative, along with Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Manhattan Councilmember Alan Gerson. “I’m ashamed as an elected official, I’m ashamed as a father, and I’m ashamed as a human being.” The measures also include $50,000 for surveying the city’s youth homeless population to find out who they are, why they’re homeless and what kinds of services would best help them. But homeless advocates already estimate that a large portion — around 42 percent — of New York’s homeless youth are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. They’re often banished to the streets by parents who won’t tolerate or can’t cope with their sexuality. It’s a staggering number, considering only 3-5 percent of the general population identifies itself as LGBT. That’s why the City Council initiative includes $400,000 for the Ali Forney Center, which provides residence for homeless LGBT youths up to the age of 24. It bills itself as the largest of its kind in the country, housing 28 LGBT youths — many of them in Clinton Hill and South Slope — with adult supervision in real apartments, a more dignified alternative to bigger mass shelters. The waiting list for the Center’s beds comprises hundreds of names. At those shelters, queer teens are often subject to abuse and violence, sometimes at the hands of shelter staff, said the Ali Forney Center’s executive director, Carl Siciliano. With the money, the center will likely expand its capacity by 20 beds, Siciliano said. This kind of exponential growth has been characteristic of the center’s short history. “When we started in summer of 2002, there was no shelter for LGBTs in New York City. We started in a church basement in Chelsea” with one donor, he said. “Now we’re the largest organization for LGBT teens in the country, with a budget of over $3 million.” Some of that expansion has come with Siciliano’s lobbying the City Council, Fidler, Gerson and Quinn in particular. The success, he said, is a step in the right direction for New York’s homeless problem. “It’s not like he’s got this huge homeless youth population in his district,” Siciliano said of Fidler. “I kind of see it as basic human decency, and I’m really grateful to him and Alan Gerson and Christine Quinn that they’ve been really decent and have helped to alleviate the plight of the homeless youth in our city.” 
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