Brittany Luce

All right.

That's all for this episode of It's Been a Minute from NPR.

I'm Brittany Luce.

Talk soon.

It's a new year, so that means many of us are taking time to check in with ourselves and our health, from mental to dental.

But I've been curious about how people are thinking about one particular kind of health, sexual health.

My producer, Corey Antonio Rose, walked around downtown Oakland to ask how people are thinking about safer sex in the new year, from the things they do to keep themselves and others safe to whether or not they knew about PrEP, a daily pill taken to prevent HIV.

You taking that Uber?

In the 80s and 90s, safer sex was all about caution, the things you had to do to do your part in ending the AIDS crisis.

But in 2026, it's changing.

It's more about competence, having the tools you need to feel confident in your own sexual health.

So today I'm joined by Dr. Leisha McKinley-Beach, founder and CEO of the

And Dr. Jasmine Abrams.

I'm a research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health.

To give us a new year booster on how to live our best sex lives.

Hello, hello.

I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

Dr. Abrams, we're going to start with a study you conducted with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the Yale School of Public Health on how people, specifically Black women, think about sex and the decisions they make regarding safer sex.

What do the people you spoke to say safer sex meant to them?

It's interesting that there's like a combination there of practical cut and dry sort of actionable things like using condoms and getting tested and knowing your partner's history and status.