Author(s): Ives Hong, Mattison Hillin
Mentor(s): Dannelle Larsen-Rife, Ed Wu
Institution UTech
Sexual health is essential across the lifespan, especially in relationships. Understanding sexual health can increase autonomy and relationship satisfaction. There is a lack of comprehensive sexual education, which results in teenage pregnancy, sexual risk behaviors, and sexually transmitted diseases (Bordogna et. al., 2018; Dickinson et al., 2024; Mark & Wu 2022; Vivancos et. al., 2013). Inadequate sexual education is common in the general population (Grose et al., 2014) and healthcare professionals (Beebe et al., 2021; Brewin et al, 2014). Sexual health seeking behavior is stigmatized and differs based on gender along with other factors (Martin, 2017), such as beliefs, attitudes, and education. Sexual health knowledge is generally lower for men compared to women; religiosity is a risk factor for lower knowledge (Martin et al., 2017). Thus, there is a need for effective methods for increasing sexual literacy. Nudges are research instruments meant to illicit behavioral change (Lin et al., 2017). Historically, nudges have been used to ethically encourage healthy behavior (Vallgårda, 2012). While there is a body of research on how nudges can alter behavior, research is lacking on how nudges may change sexual health information-seeking behavior (Vecchio and Cavallo, 2019; Madden et al., 2020). The purpose of this study is to examine how public health information (used as a nudge) may encourage people to acquire sexual knowledge. It is expected that participants who were assigned to the experimental condition are more curious about sexual literacy and more likely to report increasing their information-seeking behavior. Participants (N = 100) will be recruited to complete an online study randomly assigning them to an experimental or control condition to evaluate the effect of information nudges on behavior. An adapted version of the Nebraska Adult Sexual Literacy Survey will assess sexual literacy, and the Duke University Religion Index (Koenig & Büssing, 2010) will assess religiosity. Findings will contribute to understanding attitudes towards sexual education and may inform public health education.