- Worcester State University News - https://news.worcester.edu -

Nursing Student Completes Three-Year Project on Safe Sex Awareness and Education

Danielle Bavoux (Nursing) has completed a three-year project on venereal disease, awareness, and prevention. Part of it was done for the Community Health Improvement Plan [1].

She began working on this with Roger Greenwell (Biology) and Ellen Fynan (Biology) during her first year. As part of the Medical Microbiology course, she completed an “adopt a microbe” project for which she investigated a venereal disease and developed a prevention brochure. All students in the class completed a similar project.

She continued working with Fynan and Greenwell, completing a student survey, which indicated that students at WSU were woefully undereducated in safe sex. Next, she worked with Jenn Quinn (Health Promotion) and several students to develop and implement “Hump Day,” which promotes safe sex as well as sexually transmitted diseases and infection awareness and prevention at WSU.

Bavoux presented this as a Commonwealth Honors Project at WSU’s Celebration of Scholarship and Creativity in April. She credited the following funding sources: The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts and The Greater Worcester Community Foundation: Fairlawn Foundation.

It also has been shared with the Worcester Department of Public Health.

Submitted by Dean of the School of Education, Health, and Natural Sciences Linda Larrivee, Ph.D.