IU is 22nd in sex health poll

IU football might be stagnating at the bottom of the Big Ten standings, but IU is still above-average in one very important category: practicing safe sex.

The recently compiled Sexual Health Report Card, released by Trojan brand condoms, ranks 139 major colleges across the country based on their sexual health resources and services. IU is ranked 22nd, and fourth among Big Ten schools.

The study, conducted by independent research firm Sperling’s BestPlaces, uses 13 different criteria to examine the quality of university health centers, including student responses – a new addition to the study.

“We took out an ad on Facebook for each school, including a short question and answer,” said Bert Sperling, president and founder of Sperling’s BestPlaces. “We received over 9,000 responses from students around the country.”

IU was ranked 47th last year, and second to last in the Big Ten. Sperling attributes the large jump in ranking to the study’s new criteria.

“The student rankings probably influenced the boost,” Sperling said. “Top 25 is a very good score.”

Trojan started the Report Card in 2006, after a college media roundtable drew concern from Trojan representatives about sexual censorship and what they perceived as an overall negative sexual climate on college campuses, said Trojan spokesperson Michael Bruno.

“At the time we started doing these, there seemed to be a lot of restrictions in place,” he said. “The restrictions were being imposed by both university administrations and student groups themselves.”

Bruno said Trojan’s goal was to start an open dialogue about sexual health on college campuses. Although the first year only sparked curiosity, 2007’s report saw more meaningful results.

“The second year we started to see a much deeper debate,” Bruno said. “This year we’re seeing more action.”

Junior Ashley Chisholm said she thinks the debate is happening right here at IU.
“I feel like students definitely talk about sex and are actually worried about the consequences,” she said.

She also said that this debate is being spurred by concrete actions, both by the University administration and students themselves.

“Lately, I’ve seen a lot more posters advertising events that talk about sexual awareness,” she said. “Since I graduated high school, it seems like kids have been getting sexually active at a younger age, so I feel like we need to promote awareness more.”

Still, dialogue is only the beginning. More than 65 million Americans are living with sexually transmitted infections, and the United States ranks in the top half of countries in terms of HIV rates, Bruno said.

“We quite frankly have some of the worst sexual health statistics of all industrialized nations,” he said. “The dialogue is important, but we still have a lot of work to do.”