College students are having sex, and a lot of it. According to the Guttmacher Institute, as of June 2013, more than 71 percent of 19-year-olds nationwide had engaged in sexual intercourse at least once.
Contraception is in high demand for this age bracket, many contraceptive methods on the market. The question being asked is, just how available are they to college students?
The Guttmacher Institute reported that, "the male condom is the most commonly used method at first sex and at most recent sex among both teenage men and women."
However, at Miami, condoms are only regularly available at Student Health Services or at off-campus convenience stores and pharmacies.
The Office of Student Wellness, located in the Student Health Center, is home to the HAWKS peer health educators, who strive to educate Miami students on many relevant health issues.
"We have free contraceptives in the office - male condoms, female condoms and dental dams," Vice President Rachel Schwarz said. "We give them out when we do one of our programs, like 'Sex in the Basement' or 'Latex League.'"
These programs, she said, are often held in first-year residence halls, depending on when Resident Assistants (RAs) set up the meetings.
According to junior Elizabeth Cushnie, the office manager and program coordinator for the HAWKS peer educators, residence hall programs are the primary way they make themselves available on campus.
"We provide valid information ... and try to engage students in these topics, then we allow them to make their own decisions from there," Cushnie said. "They can use it to move forward, however they decide."
Other offices in the Health Services building, such as the Gynecology department, offer contraceptives as well, according to the Women's Health Center's official website. Though students must first set up an appointment through the office, they do offer several types of contraception as well as emergency contraception from the pharmacy.
While it is helpful to have the HAWKS team as well as licensed medical personnel in Student Health Services, both are sequestered to a single building on campus.
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Campus markets, like Spring Street Market in Shriver and Market Street in MacCracken, are centrally located and sell many common drugstore items - but not condoms or any other contraception.
"No discussion has ever been held on the matter of selling contraception at markets," General Manager of Retail Operations in Merchandising Diana Byrd said. "There is no rule against it, it just isn't sold in our markets. The topic has never been presented so we've never addressed it."
Sophomore Katie Poppe said she believes it is time this topic be presented.
"They should definitely be selling condoms in the markets on campus," Poppe said. "College students are going to have sex - that's just a fact - so Miami should at least provide a way for them to do it safely."
Sophomore Allie Medler (name changed to protect student's privacy) said she agrees.
"I think more college students would buy condoms and use them if they were sold in the markets," Medler said. "Guys don't really know when [condoms] are going to be necessary, so they won't go all the way to Kroger. Plus, there is an inherent awkwardness in going to the health center to ask for condoms. If it were sold in the markets, though, and students could use their 'fake money' [MUlaa], I think people would be more proactive about getting some condoms and having it just in case."
Reports from both CVS and Walgreen pharmacists indicated that students who find condoms inaccessible may be choosing to go without them and resort to emergency contraceptives, such as Plan B (the morning-after pill).
"We sell about 31 boxes of Plan B a week. We sell out of the product almost every weekend," CVS pharmacist Renee Hayes said. "They are mostly sold on Saturdays and Sundays. They are also very popular after holidays or popular campus events, like Green Beer Day."
The Walgreens pharmacy sees similar trends.
"We can definitely tell when the big party weekends are," Walgreens pharmacist Scott Collins said (name changed to prevent employment consequences). "Family and Parents Weekends we sell a lot less [Plan B]."
According to an online poll conducted by The Miami Student, out of 130 student responses, 32 percent reported using emergency contraception at least once. Medler aligns with the 32 percent.
"I have used Plan B once, in a situation where the guy's condom broke," she said. "I was also on birth control at the time."
Collins said it is common for people to use emergency contraception despite already being on oral contraceptives.
"A lot of instances, it is used when girls just want to be overly cautious," Collins said. "Girls who come [to Walgreens] and buy it tell me they are taking birth control pills, but they just want to be 'extra safe.' Birth control is more effective than Plan B, though, so I tell them that if they are taking it properly, they should be fine."
Plan B, in addition to other brands of emergency contraception, does not carry more risk than a regular birth control pill if used as directed, Collins said.
"As far as anything dangerous, like with one or an occasional use, there is really nothing," Collins said. "If you use it as its true intention - emergency contraception - there are no real long-term risks, just regular side effects like breakthrough bleedings, cramps, and nausea."
The product should not be taken regularly as a means of birth control and it cannot be used to terminate a pregnancy. Emergency contraception serves to prevent pregnancy by halting the process of ovulation in women, according to the official website for Plan B.
"If used within the first 72 hours after intercourse, it is 80 percent effective," Collins said. "If you have unprotected intercourse, it is recommended to use it as soon as possible."
Medler said that the price of Plan B - about $50 on average - is a drawback but not a deal breaker.
"The price is a bit of a deterrent, but I think that encourages the use of other precautionary methods of birth control, like condoms, which are cheaper and easier to come by," she said.
As for oral contraceptive methods, both availability and popularity are rising. Hayes said that CVS alone sells around 50 packs of birth control pills every day, adding up to several hundred by the end of the week. For Walgreens, which is a bit farther off campus than CVS and thus even more out of the way for Miami students, the numbers are slightly smaller but still significant.
"We typically fill about, say, 80 [total] prescriptions on a Sunday," Collins said. "Easily half of those would be birth control."
Collins added that on other days of the week, the birth control prescriptions account for much less of their total prescription sales. He also mentioned that, although the condoms are not sold in his section of the store, he would guess that only one package is sold eve ry few months.
With birth control pills so readily available and emergency contraception for back up, it is possible that condom use has seen a downturn. In Oct. 2013, the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada released a study showing that just over half (51 percent) of sexually active college students were using condoms during sex.
Medler is one who does not always use condoms.
"If it's someone that I know pretty well, I generally just stick to my birth control [pills]," Medler said, "but if it's a random person that I'm not very familiar with, I make him wear a condom because I really don't know about his sexual history or potential STDs."
However, Schwarz said two methods are always better than just one.
"An oral method of birth control plus condoms would be better than birth control alone," she said.
Trojan's seventh annual Sexual Health Report Card, published in 2012, ranks the sexual health of college campuses in the U.S. by considering the availability of sexual health resources and information for students.
Miami University ranked 96th among the 141 campuses analyzed. Some specific categories taken into account during the analysis are contraceptive availability, condom availability, and programs on sex education, according to the PR Newswire's follow-up article.
Other universities in the Midwest ranked significantly higher than Miami. The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and The Ohio State University in Columbus ranked 13th and 14th in the study, respectively. Some of Miami's rival schools, like Ohio University and the University of Cincinnati, were more than halfway up the list from Miami, at 39th and 43rd respectively.
Not all college students are the same, that much is clear, but not all college campuses are the same either. Miami has fallen behind in its sexual health, which could result in long-term repercussions for its students.
Additional reporting by Greta Morris
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