Elon alumna Jenny Vanyur and associate professor Cindy Fair have had an article, "Sexual Coercion, Verbal Aggression, and Condom Use Consistency Among College Students," published in the most recent volume of the Journal of American College Health.
In the article, Vanyur and Fair examined the relationship between condom use and two less visible categories of intimate partner violence, sexual coercion and verbal aggression, among college students.
Of the 142 participants in a spring 2007 study, 31.7 percent reported being victims of sexual coercion, and 78 percent reported having verbally aggressive partners. Participants who reported experiencing sexual coercion in their relationship were significantly less likely to consistently use condoms.
Additionally, alcohol use before or during episodes of verbal aggression was negatively associated with condom use. Alcohol use was also significantly associated with heightened incidents of coercion and aggression. Results indicate that among college students, the presence of sexual coercion adversely affects condom use, as does alcohol use.
Vanyur was a human service studies major as well as an Elon College Fellow who recently graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with her master’s of social work. She currently works at the Clara Bell Duvall Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania on a variety of reproductive rights issues, including improving reproductive health services for incarcerated women and preserving abortion access for women in the era of health care reform.
Fair chairs the Department of Human Service Studies at Elon.