Advances in Public Health - Sex on the Beach

The Detroit News remains the best source of culture change information in the midwest. The important culture change is that kids come back and get tested. Another advance would be to have the Daytona Beach hotels provide condoms with the room amenities like soap and shampoo.

BrooklynDodger questions whether the demon rum was consumed innocently, or in hopes of loosening inhibitions.

This question has been the subject of academic investigation. The authors below are based in Ann Arbor, suggesting which large public university was surveyed. Reporting an increase in "binge" drinking among undergraduate women, the investigators examined whether female undergraduate women associated being able to "drink like a guy" (e.g., drink large amounts of alcohol, drinking competitively) with gender equality. While women of all drinking levels reported feeling pressure to drink "heavily" because of the favorable impression they could make on their male peers, primarily women who were frequent binge drinkers throughout college felt that "drinking like a guy" described their own drinking behaviors. While women reported that being able to "drink like a guy" provided them with a sense of equality with their male peers, analysis of the transcripts suggests that "drinking like a guy" had less to do with gender equality and more to do with emphasizing women's (hetero)sexuality.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/health/0504/19/B01-154903.htm
Spring-breakers get STD tests
Some pay steep price for loosened vacation inhibitions, say busy doctors.

By Sharon Terlep / The Detroit News

...Doctors throughout Metro Detroit are reporting a spike in the number of young people getting STD tests in recent weeks -- a jump they attribute to spring break indiscretions. Health experts say that as the number of tests rise, so too do the number of people who test positive for such diseases as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and genital herpes.

"Without even looking at a calendar, we can pick out when spring break has ended just by the number of positives we see in the labs," said Carol Holland, technical director of the molecular pathology lab at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.

The lab, which services Beaumont's two hospitals and five medical office buildings, sees STD test requests jump more than 10 percent in the weeks following spring break.

...Now is the peak time for HIV tests at Michigan State University, since most students wait the recommended 30 days before getting tested, said Dennis Martell, MSU coordinator of health education. More than 100 students are signed up for tests in April, the most the university can do in a month.

At the University of Michigan, demand for STD tests is so high following spring break that clinic workers aren't allowed to go on vacation during peak periods.
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U-M sends safety packets, with suntan lotion, safe-eating tips and information on STDs, to students living in dorms. MSU spreads the message online, passes out condoms and encourages alternatives to traditional spring break locations.
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In a normal week, Davidson gives STD tests to three or four college-age patients at his West Bloomfield practice. In the last two weeks, about 20 college students have been in for tests, all worried they picked up an STD during spring break. Five tested positive.
... Many come in with their parents, he said.


Subst Use Misuse. 2005;40(2):241-67.

Drinking like a guy: frequent binge drinking among undergraduate women.

Young AM, Morales M, McCabe SE, Boyd CJ, Darcy H.Substance Abuse Research Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. baldwin@umich.edu

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