<p> The purpose of this study was to characterize sexual harassment in public, or &lsquo;eve teasing&rsquo;, in rural India, develop a measurement tool, and to estimate its prevalence and association with common mental disorders (CMD) and suicide ideation (SI) among young women. Mixed methods included focus group discussions, direct observation of questionnaire administration, and both qualitative and quantitative data gathering with a novel questionnaire. Females ages 14&ndash;26 were recruited through purposive sampling in nine villages for the initial pretest (N=89). Using the finalized questionnaire, we conducted a cross-sectional survey using a randomized cluster sample of 19 villages and recruited 198 women ages 15-24 using house-to-house probability sampling. Eve teasing was described as staring, stalking, passing comments, or inappropriate physical touch. Most participants perceived significant negative consequences, including tight restrictions on girls&rsquo; mobility, inability to attend school or work, girl&rsquo;s being blamed, and causing family problems. Among those who reported eve teasing victimization, psycho-social responses included feelings of fear (88%), anger (78%), and shame (68%) (N=59). The internal reliability of the questionnaire was high for key measures (Cronbach&rsquo;s alpha: .65 to .84) and principal components analysis suggested two underlying constructs in the eve teasing instrument. Nearly 30% of participants reported ever having been eve teased, 21% screened positive for a CMD, and 27% reported recent suicide ideation (N=198). In multivariate analyses, spending more than 1 hour in public daily was associated with reported eve teasing (OR: 3.1 (CI: 1.26-7.49) p=0.016). The odds of screening positive for CMD were significantly higher if eve teased, but only among participants who reported adverse childhood events (ACEs) (OR: 4.5 (CI: 1.18-11.43) p=0.003). Eve teasing was significantly associated with SI among participants who reported ACEs when CMD were included in the model (OR: 3.1 (CI: 1.119-8.472) p=0.032). This is the first study, to our knowledge, to assess the association between eve teasing victimization and mental health outcomes in a community setting. We found that eve teasing may negatively impact the mental health of young women, especially victims of child abuse, and offer a reliable and valid questionnaire for future research.</p>

<p> Drug injection is an increasingly important risk factor in the transmission of blood-borne pathogens, including the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of social network factors on HCV and HIV. The study was grounded in social network theory and sought to determine whether social network characteristics affect high-risk sexual and drug injection behavior as well as self-reported HIV and HCV status. The study design was a quantitative cross-sectional survey. A total of 181 participants in a needle exchange program completed a survey in Spanish assessing individual drug and sex risk practices as well as gathering information to describe the characteristics of participants&rsquo; personal networks from an egocentric perspective. General estimating equation techniques were used to analyze the data. Results showed that only social network size was related to risky sexual behavior. Injecting risk behaviors were only impacted by personal network exposures, measured by the average number of years network members had injected. HIV self-reported serum status was correlated with trust, closeness, and number of family members named among the closest 5 network members. Last, HCV self-reported serum status was only related to the years that network members had been injecting drugs. This study has implications for positive social change in that public health practitioners may gain a better understanding of the social network characteristics associated with high-risk behaviors of those infected with HCV and HIV in order to develop health promotion programs to lower infections and mortality.</p>