Sexual health and technology project

Project Team: Kim Allen, Ph.D., Heather Eastman-Mueller, Ph.D., Rebecca Meisenbach, Ph.D.Proposal for the 2009/2010 project "Sexual Health and Technology Project." Results from a study conducted in spring 2008 (n=956) showed that approximately 75% of MU respondents had engaged in oral and vaginal sex in their lifetime. Students reported the last time they engaged in oral, vaginal, and anal sex, only 1.7%, 37.6%, and 4.8% had used barrier protection, respectively. Furthermore, when investigating where students seek health information (including sexual health material), 79% of students reported using the Internet. Current mechanisms for MU students seeking sexual health information include presentations conducted in residence halls, Greek life, and academic classrooms. These data indicate a need for exploring alternative, innovative, and Internet-focused ways to reach our student body. This interdisciplinary, student-centered, technology-based project involves students in project leadership, website development, maintenance, content development and message construction, yielding learning opportunities for both the students implementing the project as well as website participants. This project will enlist content expertise from three student groups: peer educators from the Sexual Health and Peer Advocate Education (SHAPE) program, Service Learning students enrolled in WGST 2960, and student interns from the Human Development and Family Studies Department�s Center on Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy and Parenting (CASPP). Students from the Communication Department will transform the content into meaningful messages that will be delivered via multiple technology interfaces. A graduate student in the School of Business will develop and maintain the website. During the initial year, the entire campus community will have access to the website with a random sample of students (n=100) recruited to evaluate the site�s effectiveness by participating in a study. These students will be randomly-assigned to either an intervention or control group. Students in the intervention group will log into the site at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 9 months to complete online assessments following each intervention. Students in the control group will complete the same assessments without viewing the site. Student will be given incentives for their participation.MU Interdisciplinary Innovations Fun

Sex and Relationships Pre- and Early- COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from a Probability Sample of U.S. Undergraduate Students

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, most U.S. colleges closed their campuses-including residence halls-causing significant disruption to students' lives. Two waves of data were collected from undergraduate students enrolled at a large U.S. Midwestern university: Wave 1 was a confidential online survey of 4989 randomly sampled undergraduate students collected in January/February 2020; Wave 2 was collected in April/May 2020 following campus closure. Our research aimed to: (1) assess how the COVID-19 related campus closure affected college students' romantic/sexual relationships, (2) examine students' past month sexual behaviors prior to the pandemic in comparison with their sexual behaviors during campus closure, and (3) compare participants' pre-pandemic event-level sexual behaviors with those occurring during campus closure. Of 2137 participants who completed both waves (49.8% women, mean age = 20.9), 2.6% were living at home in Wave 1 compared to 71.0% at Wave 2. Of those in relationships, 14.5% experienced a breakup and 25.3% stayed in their relationship but returned home to different cities. There were no statistically significant differences in participants' prior month reports of solo masturbation or sending/receiving nude/sexy images between Waves 1 and 2; however, participation in oral, vaginal, and anal sex significantly decreased across waves. Examining participants' most recent sexual events, Wave 2 sex more often occurred with a cohabiting or relationship partner and was rated as more wanted, emotionally intimate, and orgasmic. Implications for sexual health professionals are discussed