All researchers should practice the "so what?" theory according to Loretta Sweet Jemmott, van Ameringen professor in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing.
"After you make a discovery, you have to say, 'So what?'" Jemmott said.
Jemmott spoke to a group of 60 people yesterday at the Nursing Education Building Auditorium as part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Symposium on Social Change.
Following the lead of Martin Luther King Jr., Jemmott tries to translate her HIV prevention research into something meaningful for the general community.
Jemmott's primary research has been on the high-risk sexual behavior of teenagers in the Philadelphia area.
A West Philadelphia native, Jemmott makes a special effort to interact with teens in the community of interest before designing her studies.
Her projects study the effects of different types of sexual health education on the sexual behavior of the teens.
Jemmott said she believes her research is particularly important because of the resistance of these communities to education that focuses solely on abstinence.
She has published studies showing that the gender or race of facilitators and teachers has little effect on the actual behavior of teens participating in education sessions.
"People say teachers should be matched for gender and race, but no one had ever studied it," Jemmott said.
She added that she believes education programs should be targeted at young children since the mean reported age of first sexual intercourse for participants in her studies hovers around age 11.
She has also published c studies claiming that safe-sex teaching has a enduring effect on behavior, while teaching abstinence has no lasting effect on teen behavior.
Jemmott says that before the Bush administration, the Center for Disease Control posted her safe-sex education designs for schools on its Web site. Jemmott said this information was removed because it did not focus primarily on abstinence -- which is advocated by Bush administration policy.
Jemmott attributes part of her success with urban communities to her willingness to "hang out in the hood" and try to understand the culture of the community.
Nursing senior Amy Felix said she was inspired by Jemmott's work. "She is taking the information back to the community," she said. "It makes her work more spectacular."
Jemmott finished her talk with an overview of Martin Luther King Jr.'s struggle for social justice and encouraged audience members to continue this struggle in their various communities.
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