By Emi Tuyetnhi Tran —
NBC News
Latino and Black parents often underestimate when their teens become sexually active, which can lead to a delay in education about safe sex practices, according to a new study published in the journal Annals
of Family Medicine.
The research concluded that parents' perception of when their children are ready to have sex correlates with their advice about condom use, which often does not coincide with when their children begin to have sex.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing went to the New York neighborhood of Mott Haven, in the South Bronx, and surveyed 191 Latino and black adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19, as well as their parents, about the behavior and sexual knowledge of adolescents.
They found that many Latino and black parents often underestimated their children's sexual readiness. In addition to age, they took into account other indicators of maturity, such as achieving certain milestones and preparation for safe sex, before providing guidance on condom use.
“Parents tended to underestimate that their teenager was sexually active, so he is not a good counselor. Because it means that the adolescent, the young person between 15 and 19 years old, could have already started having sexual relations and they do not realize it,” said Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, principal investigator of the study and executive director of the Institute for Policy Solutions of the Faculty of Nursing, who is also a nurse.
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Researchers suggest that health professionals encourage families and parents to be proactive in providing safe sex counseling, long before they perceive their children are ready for relationships.
Sexual activity among teenagers has fallen in the last decade, but worryingly, so has condom use. At the same time, rates of sexually transmitted infections among young people and unintended pregnancies among adolescent girls have increased, the researchers said.
Black and Latino communities are disproportionately affected by HIV compared to other racial or ethnic groups: Black individuals ages 13 and older make up 40% of people with HIV and Latinos ages 13 and older make up 25%. % of people with said disease.
According to the study, Black and Latino adolescents, in particular, are at a unique disadvantage when it comes to accessing health care following negative sexual health outcomes.
Parenting interventions have proven effective for Black and Latino families and as part of a broader tool to address sexual health disparities, the researchers wrote.
When parents are involved in their teens' sexuality education, their teens are more likely to wait to have sex or practice safe sex.
However, Guilamo-Ramos said many of her black and Latino teenage patients often reported wishing their parents were more involved in their sex education.
“I was working with young men, especially Latinos and African-Americans, and I saw that they had questions and that they wanted their parents to help them,” Guilamo-Ramos explained. “Parents were often unsure whether they should have conversations with their children about these topics, such as their sexual health,” he added.
“I want Latino and black families to know that their fathers matter and that they play an important role,” he concluded, “not only in terms of household finances or as a disciplinarian, but that fathers matter in terms of the relationship they have with their children, including their adolescent children.”