4.3 Aids prevention among latino teens: the role of family  (Page 7/9)

The prevention model which I propose in the Appendix focuses on the determining factors of parents-children connection and their impact on the intermediate variable attitudes toward sexual activity. As it can be seen, the relation between the situation variables, acculturation and parent-children connection (PCC), is mutual, reason why the investigation designs will be multivariate, transversal, or longitudinal, and will preferably make use of the estimation of structural equations and analysis of latent variables.

Therefore, I will elaborate a preventive intervention program that foments, on one hand, the “pro-active acculturation” and, on the other hand, the parent-children connection, (PCC) given of course that the parent’s socioeconomic status and educative level are related to their acculturation but are not object of modification in the short term in which preventive intervention activities are developed (View our model of sexual risk behavior prevention of Latino teens in the Appendix).

Main hypotheses on the preventive roll of the latino family in teens’ sexual risk behavior

1. At a smaller level of family acculturation, the greater delay of teen sexual activity and smaller probability of premature pregnancies, controlled by the level of income and educative level of the parents.

2. The more dominant and demanding Mexican-American mothers are, teen sexual experiences are more frequent.

3. The greater the affective attachment between parents and children, the greater the delay in teen sexual activity, controlled by the level of income and educative level of the parents.

4. Families where both biological parents are present, sexual risk behavior and premature pregnancies, more than other types of families, are controlled by the level of income and educative level of the parents.

5. Families with greater level of education and income are more effective in the prevention of teen sexual risk behavior than those with a lower educative level and income, controlled by the level of family acculturation.

6. The pro-active or bicultural acculturation of the parents is more strongly associated with its “sense of coherence” (Antonovsky, 1987) and with the resources of psycho-emotional resistance than with its socioeconomic status.

Main hypotheses on the effectiveness of preventive intervention programs

1. The preventive programs oriented to the development of young people who focus on an education and quality sanitary care, part-time jobs, and community voluntary works, are more effective than scholastic programs of training in social abilities.

2. The unity of programs of family rent complemented with the educative support to adolescent immigrants are more effective in the prevention of sexual risk behaviors than scholastic programs of training in social abilities.

3. The participation in drug abuse preventive programs makes sexual risk behavior and premature pregnancy less probable.

4. The affective attachment of children to the parents and the affective support of these are a preventive factor stronger than the participation in scholastic programs of training in social abilities.