Scrolling for Answers: How Young Adults Get Sexual Health Information

This brief was done in partnership with IWPR’s Connect for Success initiative and innovation Research & Training (iRT).

Among young adult community college students and alums (approximately 20–23 years old), the vast majority—85 percent—say that they would turn to the internet for answers if they have a question about sexual or reproductive health. Health care providers ranked second at 69 percent, 41 percent said they’d turn to a friend, and 33 percent said they would go to a parent for answers (Figure 1).

Young adults also ranked these sources of information about sexual or reproductive health to indicate the top source they would go to for answers to their questions. Among those who indicated they would turn to the internet, 58 percent listed the internet as their number one source. And, among those who indicated they would turn to a health care provider, 44 percent listed a health care provider as their top source.

Key Takeaways

Health centers, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies often provide trustworthy online resources to help young people find medically accurate answers to their questions, access reliable health professionals (e.g., telehealth), and schedule appointments for in-person sexual and reproductive health services (e.g., sexually transmitted infection, or STI, testing). However, many internet sources are—either deliberately or unintentionally—disseminating misleading and inaccurate sexual and reproductive health information.¹

Media literacy is defined as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.”² Young adults need both medically accurate sexual and reproductive health knowledge and media literacy skills to assess the credibility of health information and seek out high-quality digital sexual and reproductive health resources. A media literacy approach to sexual health education can help prepare young people to critically evaluate media messages and get accurate answers to their questions in an increasingly digital world.

This Quick Figure was prepared by Dr. Martinique Free (IWPR) and Dr. Reina Evans-Paulson, Dr. Christina V. Dodson, and Dr. Tracy M. Scull (innovation Research & Training, Durham, NC). It was made possible with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Funding for the Community College Health Study was provided by the Eunice Kennedy National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number R01HD099134 and award number R56HD113725-01A1 to Dr. Tracy M. Scull. Research reported in this brief is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. The authors would also like to thank Jesseca Boyer for her feedback on previous drafts, and Miranda Peterson for fact-checking.