Correlates of Condom use Among Community College Women: The Role of Victimization, Substance Use, and Mental Health Symptoms

Increasing reproductive health services through Family PACT participation among California community college student health centers

OBJECTIVE

Community college students engage in more risky sexual behavior compared to their four-year counterparts, yet have access to fewer reproductive health services. The study's purpose was to examine whether California Community College student health centers' participation in Family PACT, a state publicly-funded family planning program, increased reproductive health services to community colleges students.

PARTICIPANTS

California community college student health centers.

METHODS

Bivariate analyses of student health centers with and without Family PACT participation and qualitative analysis of five participating campuses.

RESULTS

Among the 60 colleges in the study, 25 student health centers participated in the Family PACT program. Family PACT campuses reported greater provision of sexual and reproductive health services and higher levels of staffing and revenue.

CONCLUSIONS

Key benefits of Family PACT participation among community colleges include expansion of sexual and reproductive health services to an underserved population and increased student health centers' financial sustainability.

Open pilot trial of an interactive digital application for campus sexual violence prevention

Digital applications, or "serious games" for health address learning goals in a cognitively active, interactive manner, with the potential for widespread dissemination. This study used a mixed methods approach to develop and conduct a formative evaluation of a digital application for sexual assault prevention. Make a change is a digital application that uses the principles of games for health to foster learning, engagement, and skill-building around risk and protective factors for sexual victimization, sexual aggression, and bystander intervention. The digital application includes four narrative chapters, six embedded activities, as well as a user-derived change plan in which individuals establish goals for behavior change following program completion. This multisite study at a 2- and a 4-year college utilized student interviews (n = 14), stakeholder interviews (n = 10), and focus groups with students (n = 40) to inform intervention development. A total of 41 college students then participated in an open trial and completed self-report surveys (pre, post, and 1-month follow-up) to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, utility, and preliminary outcomes. Most of the sample reported enjoyment, usefulness, and perceived competence after completing the application. Data evidenced a trend to reduce the frequency of heavy drinking, and perceptions of social norms evidenced change over time. Findings support the feasibility and effectiveness of this novel format for the delivery of sexual assault prevention programming.

Young Women's Experiences with Coercive and Noncoercive Condom Use Resistance: Examination of an Understudied Sexual Risk Behavior

OBJECTIVES

To investigate young women's engagement in and receipt of condom use resistance (CUR; attempts to avoid condom use with a partner who wants to use one), including nonconsensual condom removal ("stealthing"), with male partners.

METHODS

Participants were 503 women aged 21-30 years with increased sexual risk characteristics recruited from 2013 to 2017. Participants completed measures assessing sexual victimization history and CUR experiences.

RESULTS

Findings indicated that 87% of women experienced noncoercive CUR from a partner and 49% experienced coercive CUR. Of these women, 58% and 19% reported having engaged in noncoercive and coercive CUR, respectively. Twelve percent of women had a partner engage in stealthing; none of the women engaged in stealthing. The severity of sexual victimization history was positively associated with both use and receipt of coercive and noncoercive CUR. Diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections were positively associated with receipt of, but not engagement in, CUR.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings demonstrate that sexual victimization and both the use and receipt of CUR are positively related for young women, suggesting that prevention efforts focusing on women's sexual health would benefit from joint consideration of sexual violence and risk behaviors and that such efforts should target victims of sexual violence.