Tulane University’s Healthcare Policy Club invited New Orleans Health Department sexual and reproductive health specialist Ryann Martinek on Feb. 11 as part of Tulane’s annual Sex Week initiative promoting sexual health and awareness. Martinek discussed the state of sex education and sexual health policy in New Orleans and Louisiana.
Martinek worked on the Get It* On NOLA education campaign by the New Orleans Health Department, which promoted sexual health awareness and resources regarding syphilis.
The focus of the campaign was the “visibility piece, linking folks into care, getting them to consider testing and treatment and then stigma,” Martinek said.
She explained that the target audience for this campaign included Black women and men aged 18-39, people who are pregnant, people currently living with HIV and people living in zip codes with higher sexually transmitted infection case numbers.
“Some people had the basic knowledge of syphilis, but didn’t know that it can get a lot more serious,” Martinek said. She also listed cost, fear of results, embarrassment and not knowing where to go as reasons why many surveyed avoided getting tested.
Martinek said Louisiana has exceptionally high rates of sexually transmitted infections, ranking first in chlamydia rates nationwide.
“The concentration of cases [of chlamydia in New Orleans] is actually double that of the state,” Martinek said, referring to a New Orleans Health Department report on STIs in New Orleans.
Martinek said that Louisiana sex education policies are not standardized or required to include any instruction on consent.
“[Sex education] is intended to be medically accurate, but there’s no standard curriculum. It might be just saying the only way to prevent STIs is abstinence, and that’s technically not medically accurate,” Martinek said.
Martinek also mentioned the struggle for inclusivity in Louisiana sex education after the passing of Louisiana House Bill 122, which limits mention of sexual orientation or gender identity in Louisiana schools.
“It’s complicated regarding teaching sex and being inclusive, especially when the lines are blurred on what inclusivity is to be allowed,” Martinek said.
Martinek said the New Orleans Health Department partners with schools to train staff on how to provide structure to sex education by cultivating a medically accurate and informative curriculum. This model includes topics such as consent, anatomy, STIs and birth control.
She explained that while this is currently an opt-in system, there are plans to propose a policy to the New Orleans City Council that would create guidelines for comprehensive sex education across the parish.
Tulane junior and president of the Healthcare Policy Club Isabella Garayzar, who helped organize the event, said she wants to spread awareness regarding Louisiana’s sex education laws.
“Considering current Louisiana state laws, we thought it’d be interesting to try to educate people on sex education in the state, and specifically health policy that doesn’t always get touched upon,” Garayzar said. She said many Tulane students come from out of state and may not be aware of the local sexual health laws in the state.
Kaitlin Phou, a Tulane junior and treasurer of the Healthcare Policy Club, also helped organize the event. She mentioned the importance of healthcare policy in contributing to safer sex practices.
“It is on the individual to actually implement [safer sex practices],” Phou said. “So that’s where the public health policy comes in to try and encourage people to make these preventative measures or this practice.”
