Health Risk Taking and Human Immunodeficiency Virus Risk in Collegiate Female Athletes

Abstract

Risky health behaviors of female intercollegiate varsity athletes and their nonathlete peers were compared. Five hundred seventy-one female university students (109 athletes and 462 nonathlete peers) at two midwestern universities completed a self-administered, anonymous questionnaire during team meetings or class sessions. Each athlete was matched with two nonathlete controls of similar age, ethnicity, and class year to test for dichotomous outcome variables. A human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) risk scale was developed to identify factors associated with increased HIV risk for all of the female participants. Measures of alcohol and other drug use were associated with HIV risk. The athletes were found to engage in significantly fewer risk-taking behaviors than the nonathletes and to be at less risk for HIV. High levels of risk behaviors generally indicated the need for increased efforts to change risky behaviors in all college women.

Key Words:

• athletes
• females
• health risks
• HIV
• risk taking

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gregory L. Landry

At the time this article was prepared, all of the authors were at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Patricia K. Kokotailo is with the Department of Pediatrics; Rebecca E. Koscik, who was with Department of Biostatistics, is now a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Psychology; Michael F. Fleming is with Department of Family Medicine; and Gregory L. Landry is with the Department of Pediatrics. Bill C. Henry, who is now with the Department of Psychology at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, was formerly with the Department of Psychology at UW.