November 25, 2024, Durham, NC – Though community college students make up nearly half of all U.S. undergraduate students, they are often overlooked by sexual and relationship health research. In addition, community college students are less likely to receive sexual health resources, are more likely to experience STIs and unplanned pregnancy, and are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors than four-year college students. To address these gaps in research and better understand how to promote the sexual health of community college students, iRT has been conducting the Community College Health Study for over two years with funding provided by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Over 1,600 students and 50 faculty, staff, and administrators from 34 community colleges campuses across the United States have participated in the study. Their participation has allowed iRT to collect and analyze data that provides important insight about the sexual behaviors and beliefs of community college students, as well as how to best support colleges in their efforts to provide high-quality sexual health resources to their students.
Retaining and engaging community college students in research studies is often a difficult task; however, iRT wants to continue conducting research with this understudied population to promote their sexual health. For this reason, iRT has received additional funding from the NIH to increase retention and engagement of student participants in the Community College Health Study.
Retaining this diverse population of young adults may allow iRT to examine the sexual health of participants beyond their time in community college and across emerging adulthood. In addition, the student participant sample for this study is diverse with respect to race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual identity. Continuing research with these participants will provide insight into the sexual health of diverse group of young adults and how community college sexual health programming may impact their health in the long term.
If you would like to stay up to date on findings from the Community College Health Study and our research with young adults, sign up for the Community College Health Study newsletter at https://cchealthstudy.com/results/#newsletter-form.