Building Media Aware Campuses: Integrating Media Literacy Education into Comprehensive Sex Education for Sexual and Relationship Health Promotion and Sexual Violence Prevention
Includes a Live Web Event on 05/19/2026 at 2:45 PM (EDT)
Description:
College students need access to sexual and relationship health resources that support their well-being in our increasingly digital world. Community college students, who represent nearly half of U.S. undergraduates, are often overlooked by research and underserved by sexual health resources. Additionally, media are central in the lives of young adults, yet they often communicate unhealthy, inaccurate messages about sex and relationships which contributes to negative health behaviors. Media Aware is an online comprehensive, media literacy education-based sexual health promotion and sexual violence prevention program designed to address gaps in health promotion resources and teach students to critically evaluate media messages. In this session, presenters will share findings from a national evaluation of Media Aware with community college students, educators, and administrators, highlighting the current state of student sexual health and strategies institutions are using to overcome barriers to implementing effective programming.
Learning Outcomes:
- Advocate for the importance of providing comprehensive sex education to college students.
- Identify the key advantages of Media Aware – an online media literacy-based, comprehensive sex education program for college students – as well as next steps for implementing the program with students.
- Recognize common challenges to implementing sexual health programming and identify potential solutions that have been leveraged by personnel at community colleges across the U.S.
Reina Evans-Paulson, PhD
Project Director
innovation Research & Training Inc. (iRT)
Reina Evans-Paulson is the Project Director for the Community College Health Study. Over the past four years, Reina has traveled to community colleges across the country and worked with key stakeholders to recruit and collect data from administrators, faculty, staff, and students to better understand how to promote the sexual and relationship health of community college students. Reina is a Research Scientist at iRT. Broadly, her expertise is in conducting research related to adolescent and young adult behavioral health with a focus on implementation and evaluation of sexual health interventions, parent and family influences on health, and sexual health communication.
Tracy Marie Scull, PhD
Principle Investigator
innovation Research & Training Inc. (iRT)
Dr. Tracy Marie Scull leads the Community College Health Study as the Principal Investigator. Dr. Scull is a developmental psychologist with extensive expertise in sexual health promotion, substance use prevention, and media literacy education. As a Senior Research Scientist at innovation Research & Training, Inc. (iRT), she has led numerous federally funded research projects, securing multi-million-dollar grants from the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. Dr. Scull is the developer of the Media Aware and Media Aware Parent programs, innovative, evidence-based interventions designed to enhance media literacy skills, promote healthy decision-making, and reduce risk behaviors among young adults as well as children, adolescents, and their families.