The University of Wisconsin may have been in the top tier of colleges when it comes to sexual health, but its position is slipping, according to a recent survey.

Out of 141 colleges nationwide, the Trojan Sexual Health Report Card ranked UW at 43, an eight-place drop from last year.

The report card is an annual study ranking the accessibility of sexual health information and resources at colleges throughout the nation.

After receiving an F in the anonymous advice via e-mail or newspaper column category and an A for HIV testing cost and locality, UW received an overall 2.79 sexual health GPA.

Despite a drop in ranking, student opinions of sexual health on the UW campus improved from a C last year to a B this year.

Sperling’s BestPlaces, the firm conducting the study, aims to research each campus’s sexual health resources and their accessibility to students, said Bert Sperling, president of BestPlaces.

The study collects data from three main sources — online research, questionnaires sent to health centers and student opinion polls.

To assess sexual health on each campus, data from these three sources is collected across 13 categories, assigning each category a letter grade to calculate an overall grade point average for the school.

The student polls BestPlaces uses in collecting data come from Facebook, where data from specific schools is amassed from students willing to respond and specify the college they attend.

“A total of 85 responses were received from UW students, a relatively large amount compared to the average 50 responses received across all colleges,” Sperling said.

There is an element of trust behind the emphasis on student opinion polls, said Michael Bruno, senior account supervisor at Edelman, Trojan’s public relations agency.

“You can have the best resources, but if [students] aren’t using them and don’t trust them, how good are they?” Edelman said. “How much value are they?”

University Health Services remains skeptical of this methodology, said Craig Roberts, epidemiologist for UHS.

“From a statistical perspective, student opinions are worthless,” Roberts said.

With more transparency and direct feedback regarding what an ideal 4.0 entails, Roberts said he believes the ranking could be more useful and possibly more helpful in implementing revision.

Despite such criticism, since the rankings were first released four years ago, Trojan has seen an increase in the amount of action taken by college students to improve their campus’s state of sexual health, Bruno said.

“The most valuable thing about the report card is its ability to incite change,” Bruno added. “It’s not only about making people aware, but also engaging them to improve sexual health.”

With the belief that sexual health should be readily available to students, the report card provides students with a tool to advocate for improved sexual health resources and information on campus.

“Schools that make the most information available and easiest to obtain sexual health resources remain at the top,” Bruno said.