Adverse Childhood Environment: Relationship With Sexual Risk Behaviors and Marital Status in a Large American Sample

Abstract

A substantial theoretical and empirical literature suggests that stressful events in childhood influence the timing and patterning of subsequent sexual and reproductive behaviors. Stressful childhood environments have been predicted to produce a life history strategy in which adults are oriented more toward short-term mating behaviors and less toward behaviors consistent with longevity. This article tests the hypothesis that adverse childhood environment will predict adult outcomes in two areas: risky sexual behavior (engagement in sexual risk behavior or having taken an HIV test) and marital status (currently married vs. never married, divorced, or a member of an unmarried couple). Data come from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The sample contains 17,530 men and 23,978 women aged 18–54 years living in 13 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia. Adverse childhood environment is assessed through 11 retrospective measures of childhood environment, including having grown up with someone who was depressed or mentally ill, who was an alcoholic, who used or abused drugs, or who served time in prison; whether one’s parents divorced in childhood; and two scales measuring childhood exposure to violence and to sexual trauma. The results indicate that adverse childhood environment is associated with increased likelihood of engaging in sexual risk behaviors or taking an HIV test, and increased likelihood of being in an unmarried couple or divorced/separated, for both men and women. The predictions are supported by the data, lending further support to the hypothesis that childhood environments influence adult reproductive strategy.