Department of the Army, Office of the Surgeon General, Pharmacovigilance Center, 1335 East-West Highway, Suite 6-100, Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA.
Am J Epidemiol. 2011 May 15;173(10):1203-10. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwq498. Epub 2011 Mar 31.
Mexican-American girls have one of the fastest rates of decline in age at menarche. To date, no study has addressed the role of psychosocial factors on age at menarche in this population. Using data from a longitudinal cohort of Mexican-American girls from the Houston, Texas, metropolitan area recruited in 2005, the authors investigated associations between family life and socioeconomic environment and age at menarche in 523 girls. After adjusting for maternal age at menarche, daughter's age, and body mass index at baseline, perception of family life environment as conflict-prone was significantly associated with an earlier age at menarche (< 11 years). Additionally, there was a 2-fold higher risk (odds ratio = 2.22, 95% confidence interval: 1.12, 4.40) of early menarche among daughters of mothers who were single parents compared with those who were not. Furthermore, girls who matured early had a 2.5-fold increased risk (odds ratio = 2.69, 95% confidence interval: 1.04, 6.96) of experimenting with cigarettes compared with those who had an average-to-late age at menarche (≥ 11 years). This study provides important information regarding the role of family life environment and single parenting on age at menarche in Mexican Americans. Awareness of the impact of the family life environment and fathers' absence during the early years should be emphasized when addressing early age at menarche across cultures.
墨西哥裔美国女孩的初潮年龄下降速度是最快的之一。迄今为止，尚无研究探讨这一人群中社会心理因素对初潮年龄的影响。本研究使用了来自 2005 年德克萨斯州休斯顿都会区的墨西哥裔美国女孩的纵向队列研究数据，作者调查了家庭生活和社会经济环境与 523 名女孩初潮年龄之间的关系。在校正了母亲初潮年龄、女儿年龄和基线时的体重指数后，家庭生活环境感知易冲突与初潮年龄较早（<11 岁）显著相关。此外，与母亲不是单身母亲的女孩相比，母亲是单身母亲的女孩初潮较早的风险增加了两倍（比值比=2.22，95%置信区间：1.12，4.40）。此外，与初潮年龄在平均至较晚年龄（≥11 岁）的女孩相比，初潮较早的女孩尝试吸烟的风险增加了 2.5 倍（比值比=2.69，95%置信区间：1.04，6.96）。这项研究提供了有关家庭生活环境和单身母亲对墨西哥裔美国人初潮年龄影响的重要信息。在跨文化背景下解决初潮年龄较早的问题时，应该强调家庭生活环境的影响和父亲在早年的缺失。
