Hello readers! If we haven’t met yet, I’m Amy Vertacnik, and this fall is my second “term” with the Reproductive Rights and Health internship program. I’ll be continuing my research with Dr. Alyssa Lederer on a study exploring the factors associated with STI knowledge in college students. Last summer, I completed a literature review about what our public health community already knows about this topic. This semester, I’ll be supporting Dr. Lederer on her statistical analysis and working to write a manuscript of our findings to submit for publishing.
Little research has been conducted to determine demographic factors related to American college students’ STI knowledge, and none has provided an overview of the factors. This project hopes to help fill that gap. Based on the literature, the following variables will be examined in our manuscript, assuming there is a large enough sample size to do so: gender, year in school (age), race/ethnicity, international student status, and top informal source of information.
Along with writing a manuscript, we are also creating and submitting a poster on this research to the American College Health Association (ACHA) conference with hopes of presenting our poster in the spring. Additionally, this semester, I’ll be helping Dr. Lederer format another research poster on condom use for her presentation at the American Public Health Association (APHA) conference, reformatting references on yet another project, and participating in our women’s research group.
This fall will be a busy “term” but a very exciting one!