University Health Services

BACKGROUND:

This project was given as a 48 hour crash exercise. My team also won the client pitch for this project.

The client wants to improve the ability of students to negotiate condom use and increase condom use. Additional information about the health issues surrounding this topic were provided, as well as some initial secondary research.

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PROBLEM:

University Health Services needs to determine how to best educate students about sexual health in general, create a sense of intuitiveness for sex and condom negotiation, and communicate the accessibility of condoms on campus.

RESEARCH: 

• Secondary Research Topics:

  • Millennials and brand familiarity

  • Sexual health and birth control

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• Primary Research: 

  • Survey:

    • The survey consisted of 47 participants, 36 of which are UT students. Of those 36 UT students, 22 identified themselves as being sexually active

    • Focus of survey:

      • To uncover awareness of accessibility of free sexual protection on The University of Texas at Austin’s campus

      • To see how inclined people may be to access free protection on campus

      • To gain insights about condom usage

  • Social Experiments:

    • The social experiment was conducted at UT’s trafficked, residential and student-centered areas in order to determine condom accessibility and product preference. We chose these locations due to the online survey results revealing students’ desired locations of condom accessibility.

      • Part 1: The first-part of the experiment was to test condom accessibility on campus. We placed Trojan condoms in three different locations:The Union, PCL (Perry-Castañeda Library), and Jester West Residence Hall and monitored them in 30-minute increments.

      • Part 2: The second-part of the experiment was to test brand preference. We placed UHS’ packaged Crown condom products and Trojan condom products side-by-side with obviously labeled brand names on the containers respectively in the same locations and monitored them in 30-minute increments.

        • Results: Of two separately labeled condom containers holding 54 UHS condoms and 54 Trojan condoms, within 30 minutes 26 Trojans were taken while 13 UHS packaged Crown Condoms were taken.

  • In-Depth Interviews:

    • We interviewed two UHS staff and eight UT students (four female and four male).

      • The four male students were selected based upon an overheard conversation during the second-part of our social experiment. They loudly announced a distaste for UHS’ condoms versus the Trojans.

      • The females were randomly selected from the UT graduate student population. They were all interviewed with questions that pertained to brand perception and location preference. 

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KEY FINDINGS & INSIGHTS:

• 55 percent of our respondents use some form of contraception all the time while 41percent use contraception some of the time when participating in sexual activity, and 4.5 percent do not use contraception at all.

•  The condom brands most preferred were Trojan at 40 percent, Durex at 18 percent, LifeStyles at 9 percent and Crown (UHS brand) at 0 percent. This is important in our research because it demonstrates UHS is not currently meeting the preferences of the student body.

• 27 percent were utilizing the free contraception on campus while 55 percent preferred to get from somewhere else.

• The reasons for not using free contraception included convenience and quality concerns of the product as well as not being familiar with UHS’s available condom brand.

• Regarding condom location preference, respondents preferred bathrooms, residential halls, and The Union.

• We also observed that of the few females who picked up condoms most approached the containers alone and grabbed only one to two. Meanwhile, males seemed to grab more than one every time, and they were more inclined to take more when they were in groups.

• This shows that students do care about brand preference when making sexual health decisions.