The University of Iowa will host a Condom Crawl tonight to inform students and bar patrons about proper safe-sex techniques as well as providing them with safe-sex materials.

The crawl, which is a part of National Condom Week, running from Valentine’s Day through Feb. 21, will go among bars in downtown Iowa City. Participating in the crawl will be staff members from the Student Health Service as well as undergraduate students.

Data provided by Student Health show the number of unwanted pregnancies dropped from 2.4 percent to 1 percent between 2009 and 2011.

"We’d like to say that we’ve contributed to that drop," said Stephanie Beecher, a Student Health behavioral health consultant. "The true measurement is that we’re going to start collecting data every year instead of every other year."

The Condom Crawl is meant to break the barrier between heath workers and students by focusing on interactions among people.

"We’re trying to create a peer-on-peer interaction," Beecher said. "It’s all about creating a comfortable environment and showing people that it’s OK to talk about these things and it’s OK to hand out condoms."

— by Conrad Swanson