Buffie Longmire-Avital, assistant professor of psychology, and Virginia Oberle’ 14, assistant director of admissions at Elon, conducted an internet-based study to explore the sexual health behaviors of black American emerging adult (ages 18 – 29), heterosexually-active women.
Recruiting women through social networking sites and blog subscribers, Longmire-Avital and Oberle, an Elon College Fellow at the time, gathered qualitative data on why this sample of 127 young adult women considered condoms to be their primary form of protection. Three major themes emerged: (a) the perception of condoms as the reliable “standard,” (b) pregnancy prevention, and (c) cost effective/”easily accessible.”
Surprisingly, sexually transmitted infection (STI) protection was not a major reason for use. The article discusses these findings in terms of their public health implication for this seemingly lower-risk population. The article is published in “Women & Health,” which is ranked 7th out of the top 50 journals that focus on women, gender and sexuality studies. The online first article citation is listed below:
Longmire-Avital, B. & Oberle, V. (2015). “Condoms are the standard, right?”: Exploratory study of the reasons for using condoms by Black American emerging adult women. Women & Health, DOI: 10.1080/03630242.2015.1086469.