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The Minnesota Daily

Serving the UMN community since 1900

The Minnesota Daily

Serving the UMN community since 1900

The Minnesota Daily

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Report card not so sexy

Trojan’s “report card” doesn’t give much real information about sexual health.

The Trojan Sexual Health Report Card ranked the University of Minnesota 68th this year, dropping from 10th last year. While on the surface this looks like bad news for Minnesota, we should not take these findings seriously. A private corporation with an interest in the studyâÄôs outcome funded the âÄúresearch.âÄù

One major red flag is that the University went from 10th to 68th in the rankings in just one year. Trojan conducts the study at 140 different colleges in the nation, basing it on sexual health resources and information. This type of extreme fluctuation should make us skeptical of the study. The rankings seem almost random.

Here at the University, we have the student group Sexual Health Awareness and Disease Education at Boynton Health Service. This group provides plenty of information to students about sexual health.

SHADE has an active presence on campus. The group often has a table at University events. Members hand out free condoms along with informational brochures on various questions about sex and health. SHADE is an available and approachable group right on campus for students to utilize.

The Trojan Sexual Health Report Card may be helpful in creating sexual health awareness, but it obviously shouldnâÄôt be given the same credence as an academic study. The study appears to be more of a marketing tool for Trojan to advertise itself on college and university campuses.

The information that the health card findings point out isnâÄôt very helpful. These numbers have some limited use, but they donâÄôt offer much action to improve the situation as SHADE does here on campus.

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