Objective: This paper explores the challenges, opportunities, and successes encountered in implementing , a bystander intervention training program to prevent sexual aggression in bars. The study aims to assess the feasibility of program implementation and its acceptability among bar staff and bar owners/managers.
Methods: Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the study assessed the feasibility of by documenting bar participation, reasons for declination, and the time elapsed during recruitment, offering insights into experienced challenges and successes.
Objective: The primary objective of this study was to identify healing strategies directly from women who experienced sexual assault and sexual exploitation. The second objective was to explore secondary themes related to healing from sexual assault. This study included two quantitative objectives.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFViolence Against Women
August 2024
Ensuring that support and services are meeting the needs of survivor-victims (SV) of sexual assault requires that policymakers, service providers, and advocates seek their insight directly. This article reports qualitative results on self-perceived needs from SV focus groups conducted in the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the United States (Phoenix, Arizona). Interviews with key informants (KIs) drawn from the service and justice sector were also obtained for system-level perspectives of SV priority needs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article describes the development of the Verbally Pressured Sexual Exploitation module of the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES)-Victimization (introduced by Koss et al., 2024). This module assesses the use of verbal or nonphysical, paraverbal pressure to obtain sexual acts without freely given permission.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Sexual Experiences Survey [SES] is considered the gold standard measure of non-consensual sexual experiences. This article introduces a new victimization version [SES-V] developed by a multidisciplinary collaboration, the first revision since 2007. The 2024 SES-V is designed to measure the construct of sexual exploitation since the 14th birthday.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe new Sexual Experiences Survey-Victimization (SES-V) was designed to capture a larger range of sexual exploitation and to be applicable to more diverse populations than prior measures. This study represents the first administration of the SES-V in a national sample of adults ( = 347). Participants were recruited from a crowdsourcing platform and selected to reflect the national distribution in terms of age, sex, and race/ethnicity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Sexual Experiences Survey-Victimization (SES-V; see Koss et al., 2024) revises the prior 2007 Sexual Experiences Survey-Short Form Victimization (SES-SFV) in many ways, including expanded measurement of verbally pressured and illegal sexual exploitation, as well as the addition of items that assess being made to perform a sexual act or to penetrate another person sexually. The current article describes two initial validity studies of the SES-V.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince the initial development of the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) four decades ago, the SES has been designed to measure a range of forms of sexual exploitation, including acts that are coercive but not legally sanctioned as well as acts that legally qualify as crimes. That feature was retained in the revised Sexual Experiences Survey-Victimization (SES-V) measure. This article reviews the theoretical and empirical literature that guided the development of the Illegal Sexual Exploitation module of the SES-V, which measures experiences of nonconsensual exploitation resulting in sexual contact and which is designed to correspond to legal definitions across multiple jurisdictions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Sexual assault is consistently associated with social contexts that support high levels of alcohol consumption such as alcohol-serving establishments (i.e., bars).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRape prevention practice and policy have roots in data from 1985. This study uses 2015 national data to project recent prevalence, assesses whether rates now differ from those of 30 years ago, and disaggregates 2015 prevalence into rape of alcohol incapacitated victims, rapes combining both alcohol and physical tactics, and violent rape. Cross-sectional analyses were conducted comparing two national samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Despite unprecedented advances in worldwide access to the internet via smartphones, barriers to engaging hard-to-reach populations remain in many methods of health research. A potential avenue for conducting qualitative research is via participatory web-based media, including the free, popular social platform WhatsApp. However, despite the clear advantages of engaging with participants over a well-established web-based platform, logistical challenges remain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Levels of knowledge about the sexual transmission of Zika virus are consistently low in populations at risk of a mosquito-borne outbreak, including among women of childbearing age and women who are pregnant or intend to become pregnant. We investigated the effectiveness of sources of public health messaging about sexual transmission to women who are pregnant or intend to become pregnant in Arizona.
Methods: In 2017, we conducted an Arizona-statewide survey 15 months after the initial release of US guidelines on sexual transmission of Zika virus.
This article focuses on the characteristics of sexually violent men who have not been convicted of a crime. The objective of this study was to test the four key interrelated pillars of the Confluence Model. The first key pillar posits the interaction of Hostile Masculinity and Impersonal Sex as core risk predictors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring the 2016 Zika pandemic in Brazil, women's perceptions of infection risk, ability to adhere to Zika prevention strategies, or access to services following exposure were not emphasized in the public health response. Women in Fortaleza, Brazil, responded to a questionnaire on social factors related to perceived Zika risk and access to health care in June 2016. Data were coded using prespecified categories, and response frequency was reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMobile health (mHealth) technologies are increasingly used across health programming including intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention to optimize screening, educational outreach, and linkages to care via telehealth. We systematically evaluated current web-based and mHealth interventions, which include web- or mobile-based delivery methods for primary, secondary, and tertiary IPV victimization prevention. We searched MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Open Grey, and Google Scholar for empirical studies published 1998-2019.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), or those individuals susceptible to IPV victimisation or perpetration, may benefit from participation in primary, secondary or tertiary interventions to address or mitigate exposure to violence despite mixed evidence of IPV intervention effectiveness. However, participation in such programmes is limited by poor access, sociocultural barriers and programme cost. As the world fast approaches universal access to the internet, web-based technologies and low-cost smartphones, new avenues to provide preventive health services including mobile health (mHealth) tools, platforms and services have emerged.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The relationship of health risk behavior and disease in adulthood to the breadth of exposure to childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and household dysfunction during childhood has not previously been described.
Methods: A questionnaire about adverse childhood experiences was mailed to 13,494 adults who had completed a standardized medical evaluation at a large HMO; 9,508 (70.5%) responded.
To report on college student opinions about the scope of college sexual misconduct (CSM), suggested university sanctions, and treatment of students found responsible of CSM. In all, 23 US undergraduate students (14 females and 9 males) with a mean age of 20 years. Students participated either in female, male, or mixed-sex focus groups that facilitated the discussion of factors related to CSM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe present study investigated (a) comparisons in rates of rape and sexual assault acknowledgment and (b) a comprehensive multivariate multinomial logistic model predicting rape and sexual assault acknowledgment in a sample of 174 college women who had experienced rape. Significantly more women acknowledged having experienced sexual assault than rape. Greater perceived perpetrator force was associated with increased likelihood of rape and sexual assault acknowledgment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInternationally and in the United States many victims of sexual assault and domestic violence are unserved, underserved, or ill-served, especially those from the most vulnerable populations. Programs developed in the United States are routinely exported to developing countries but often without success. Notably, the failures seen internationally resemble those in the United States and are related to structural and attitudinal-cultural factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: In spite of a high prevalence of HIV infection among adolescents and young adults in sub-Saharan Africa, uptake of HIV testing and counseling among youth in the region remains sub-optimal. The objective of this study was to assess factors that influence uptake of HIV testing and counseling among youth aged 15-24 years in sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods: This study used the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from countries that represent four geographic regions of sub-Saharan Africa: Congo (Brazzaville), representing central Africa (DHS 2011-2012); Mozambique, representing southern Africa (DHS 2011); Nigeria, representing western Africa (DHS 2013); and Uganda, representing eastern Africa (DHS 2011).
Objective: Most frequency data on violence are non-normally distributed, which can lead to faulty conclusions when not modeled appropriately. And, we can't prevent what we can't accurately predict. We therefore review a series of methods specifically suited to analyze frequency data, with specific reference to the psychological study of sexual aggression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF