ACHA 2020 Sexual Health Services Survey Survey Report

ACHA has collected data from SHSs regarding STI/HIV surveillance, cervical cancer screening practices and management of abnormal results on a calendar year (CY) basis since 1991. Formerly known as the Pap Test and STI Survey, the purpose of the Sexual Health Services Survey (SHSS) is to provide benchmarking data on practices and STI/HIV testing outcomes for comparison among SHSs and analysis of trends over time. Previous reports can be found on the Sexual Health Services Survey page.

This is a particularly important cycle of the Sexual Health Services Survey (SHSS), as it provides a snapshot of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on cervical cancer screening, sexually transmitted infection and human immunodeficiency virus (STI/HIV) testing and pregnancy testing. The national, state and local stay-at-home orders that began in March of 2020 forced college health practitioners to transition their programs and services to virtual environments, while also trying to address the pandemic on their campuses. As such, the provision of sexual health services on many campuses was largely prioritized well below the immediate need to respond to COVID-19.

As was announced during the CY 2020 survey cycle (the cycle of this report), there are now two versions of the survey that are distributed on alternating years. Below is a general breakdown of what is included in each version:

Both Even and Odd Years:

• Surveillance Questions
  • Cervical cancer screening outcomes
  • STI/HIV testing positivity
  • Pregnancy testing positivity

Even Years:

• Surveillance Questions
• General Practice Questions
  • Management of cervical cancer screening results
  • STI/HIV testing practices and services
    • Cost of STI/HIV testing
    • Extragenital testing
    • STI/HIV testing outreach events
    • Anonymous HIV testing
    • Routine chlamydia testing among patients assigned female at birth
  • Contraception provision
  • Services provided after positive pregnancy tests

Odd Years:

• Surveillance Questions
• Organizational assessment in alignment with the Implementation Guide for Best Sexual Health Practices in College Settings developed by the American College Health Foundation with support from Hologic, Inc.

This report contains data collected by ACHA Member Institutions for Calendar Year 2020 (January 1 – December 31) according to the Even Years version of the SHSS. The survey was administered using Qualtrics Research Suite online survey software (Qualtrics, Inc.), and response data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics v23 (SPSS, Inc.).

The response period was December 2020 to April 2021.