During the past several weeks in my internship with Dr. Lederer I finished working on a second poster for her APHA conference presentation, pictured, and continued to work on my literature review.
I thought I was nearly done with my literature review several weeks ago because there did not appear to be that many relevant sources. However, through reading many of the articles, it seems like a broader variety of topics might be relevant to understanding web-based sex education interventions. Several of the main points I have learned are that web-based interventions are designed for a variety of settings, including schools (which is most pertinent for Dr. Lederer’s work), but also to be used in combination with community-based classes or clinic visits. Digital games are also a popular new type of sex education method, but researchers are unsure how effective they are, or what components of the video games makes them most effective. It also seems that many web-based interventions are successful at increasing health knowledge and safer sex attitudes in the short run, but it is unclear if one-time interventions are capable of producing long term attitude or behavior change. The overall message is that the efficacy of digital sex education interventions is dependent on a variety of factors and much more research needs to be done. This is good rationale for doing the study on Dr. Lederer’s data that this literature builds up to. I am excited to start working on data analysis early next semester!