When deciding between using birth control pills or condoms to protect her during sex, Dina Tashjian, a pre-medical freshman, chooses both.
"I'm not sleeping around, I have a boyfriend, but it seems safer - a double protection - to use condoms as well as pills," Tashjian said.
According to a study, paid for in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Tashjian is right to be careful.
The study recently discovered that women who use hormonal birth control methods without barrier methods are more likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease.
Dennis Martell, Olin health education services coordinator, said the results of the study were common sense.
"The basis of that study is that with hormonal contraception you don't use barrier contraception," Martell said. "A lot of people who use hormone control think they're safe and don't realize it won't protect them from STDs."
Charles Morrison of Family Health International in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and author of the report, could not be reached for comment.
The study focused on the STDs chlamydia and gonorrhea.
According to the 2004 National College Health Assessment only 2 percent of MSU students reported having an STD.
But Martell said he is skeptical of the data because 75 percent of women who have chlamydia, one of the diseases focused upon by the study, never have symptoms.
Alice Dreger, an associate professor in the Lyman Briggs School said different forms of birth control work better to prevent different potential outcomes of sexual encounters.
To prevent pregnancy, Dreger said, hormonal contraceptives are the most effective. Dreger is the former adviser of the MSU student organization Voices for Planned Parenthood.
According to the health assessment, 63 percent of women who were sexually active used birth control pills. Five percent use Depo Provera, a hormone shot received every three months.
But to prevent STDs, barrier methods should be used, Martell said.
The health assessment reported 58 percent of MSU students used a condom the last time they had sex.
"I recommend condoms as one of the easiest, cheapest ways to stay STD free," economics senior Liz Downing said.
Dreger said the best way to be sexually active and safe is to combine a hormonal and a barrier contraceptive.
"If you want to prevent pregnancy and disease the best choice is to use two forms of contraception such as a condom and birth control or Depo Provera," Dreger said.
