Free condoms to study safe sex!

Free condoms in the mail to study safe sex on campus Rhode Island, USA.

Project CARES - Condom Accessibility and Responsibility for Every Student, an on-campus research study of student sexual health - will launch this spring under the direction of Ben Colburn '10. Student participants will receive 42 condoms in their mailboxes over the span of three months and will take two online surveys to provide information on student sexual health and the University's current condom distribution system. The project's goal is to determine the most effective way to encourage safe sex on campus.

The lack of information on safe sex among college students is alarming, Colburn said. Nationally, adolescents ages 18-25 report an average condom usage rate of 50 percent, according to Colburn and Naomi Ninneman, a University health educator specializing in sexual education. They said, however, such statistics generally do not exist specifically for college campuses.

Colburn said his previous research with the Global Alliance to Immunize Against AIDS - a local NGO that also has an on-campus branch to promote HIV awareness - has suggested that Brown students are not fully aware of the most effective means of safe sex. He said he noticed a lot of anxiety at an on-campus AIDS testing he attended last year.

"I heard a lot of interest in people wanting to know their (infection) status," Colburn said. "They felt they were safe because they were in the Brown bubble, but also saying, 'I think I may have been doing something that might put me at risk.' "

Curiosity piqued, Colburn administered a survey on the next test date to explore students' perceptions of safe sex, HIV transmission and general sexual activity. His sample of 61 participants was not statistically significant, he said, but the data hinted at practices of unsafe sex on campus. Most survey participants were able to identify high-risk sexual activities, but confusion existed over which body fluids transmitted HIV. Participants also reported a condom usage rate on par with the national average of 50 percent for people ages 18 to 25.

Colburn is now taking his preliminary research to the next level with his official on-campus study, Project CARES. The group consists of Colburn, seven friends and three mentors: Ken Mayer, a professor of medicine who also works at the Fenway Institute in Boston; Cynthia Rosengard, a sexual health specialist at Lifespan and Rhode Island Hospital; and Matthew Mimiaga, a biostatistician and post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Project CARES is funded by Youth Venture, a group that invests in socially conscious youth start-ups, and GAIA.

Designed to learn more about men's attitudes and behaviors surrounding safer sex, Project CARES targets biologically male Brown undergraduates. Though they would like to include males and females, Colburn's small, low-budget study could not handle the necessary 204 members of each sex needed to make his research statistically significant, he said. Literature suggested the study would have more impact with males as the target group, according to Colburn.

Additional requirements include that participants be between the ages of 18 and 25 and will be on campus for the spring semester. Colburn said he prefers subjects be sexually active.

"If you have tons of sex without condoms because your girlfriend is on the pill, that's fine," Colburn said. "We just want to get baseline information to see what the general sexual health is for Brown."

To accomplish this, Colburn plans to administer a series of online surveys. Participants will complete the first questionnaire during the last week of January and will then receive seven condoms in their mailbox every two weeks for three months. At the end of May, they will complete another survey to determine any changes in sexual activity.

The study's success depends largely on its participants, said Colburn, who so far has gathered about 17 subjects through table slips, advertisements in The Herald and on Facebook, talking to fraternities and word of mouth. He said he hopes an incentive program offering free tea, coffee, barbecues and gift certificates to Miko's Exotic Wear will encourage students to recruit their friends.

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- TERUG -