<an style="font-weight: bold">Sexual Health Survey: A Spring SWA Program
Are Carleton students sexually healthy? If they aren’t, what can we do as student wellness advisors to improve the situation? To help answer these questions, the SWAs have formulated a very brief survey, which addresses some main issues surrounding sexual health.
The survey takes three minutes or less to complete, and we will not be able to link your identity with your answers in any way.
These include gender and sexual orientation, healthy relationships, campus wide sexual habits, STI prevention and birth control use, to name a few.
The idea behind the survey is to give students accurate information about the sexual practices and opinions of their peers, instead of rattling off less relevant stats about college campuses in general.
The results of this survey will be reported back to the campus and used to influence future programming for the student body. All results are completely anonymous, and will provide more accurate statistics about our campus community.
As of right now, the survey is online at:
http://studentvoice.com/cc/swaspring09sexualhealth .
Additionally, the SWAs will be approaching students to take the survey during the day this week. We will have PDAs, which will record your answers electronically and send them to the college for analysis. We hope that you will take this opportunity to enlighten your fellow students about sexual health on our campus.
Your information will have a great impact on future campus programming, and we are sure that the results will be very worthwhile and interesting! After all, we formulated the questions to garner information about one of the most beloved subjects: SEX! Thanks so much for your participation!
Psychologist Dr. Zvolensky speaks about PTSD
Earlier this week, the Wellness Center and Carleton’s Department of Psychology presented a lecture by Dr. Michael Zvolensky, a prominent clinical psychologist.
Dr. Zvolensky’s research aims to better understand the onset, maintenance, and treatment of anxiety disorders and their comorbidity with substance use disorders.
Although Dr. Zvolensky is proficient in a broad array of topics, his presentation to Carleton’s faculty, staff, and student body focused on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and smoking.
He noted that individual differences in the fear of the possible negative consequences of internal stimuli (i.e., anxiety sensitivity) are uniquely related to limited tolerance for negative affect and avoidance-oriented affect regulation. Such effects tend to be exacerbated when individuals are exposed to uncontrollable or unpredictable sources of personal threat, such as unexpected aversive bodily sensations and traumatic life events. Thus, an individual with PTSD tends to be fearful of and reactive to anxiety-related symptoms and bodily sensations when suffering from nicotine withdrawal after a quit attempt.
Through his research, Dr. Zvolensky has concluded that PTSD is associated with a high risk of relapse during the first week following a quit attempt. 93.7% of those with PTSD will relapse. In light of these findings, Dr. Zvolensky underscores the need for specialized interventions for individuals with PTSD who are attempting to quit smoking.
Dr. Zvolensky has published over 200 scientific articles and received a variety of early contribution to the field awards from professional organizations. He has obtained over five million dollars in extramural funding for his research since obtaining his doctoral degree in clinical psychology in 2001.
Dr. Zvolensky’s research has shaped the development of previously unavailable intervention and prevention programs for difficult-to-treat populations such as individuals with comorbid anxiety and substance use problems.
Over the next few years, Dr. Zvolensky hopes to continue to develop and expand his interrelated lines of research and, finally, to evaluate the efficacy of his specialized intervention approaches.