Rates of violence Perpetration and victimization in Cohorts of Middle and High- School Students During a Sexual violence Prevention Initiative: A longitudinal Analysis

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the likelihood of violence in successive cohorts of students in a small city during the implementation of a youth-led sexual violence prevention initiative. We compared the likelihood of violence among students who were in 8th, 9th, and 10th grade before the programming to the likelihood of violence among students who were in 8th, 9th, and 10th after the programming. Participants were 2,647 middle- and high-school youth who completed five surveys over 3 years. Later cohorts were less likely to report violence, suggesting that the prevention initiative may have led to reductions in violence over time. Despite limitations (e.g., lack of a comparison group), these data underscore the need for future evaluation of the community-wide impact of youth-led violence prevention initiatives. Clinical trial number: NCT03207386

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual violence
• interpersonal violence
• prevention
• youth-led
• quasi-experimental

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Dr. Laura Siller for your consultation and guidance on the analytic technique. This project would not have been possible without our community partners, including local schools, as well as the numerous research assistants and community liaisons who led to the success of our study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We present valid percentages; because some students selected “I decline to answer,” numbers do not necessarily add to the total N. Count represent participants’ identity at the first wave they took the survey; for example, if a participant identified as male at Wave 1 and female at Wave 3, that participant was counted as male here.

2. This comparison had low cell sizes; only four 10th grade students reported sexual perpetration at W4.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Grant #R01-CEO02524. The findings and conclusions in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention (CDC) [U01-CEO02838].

Notes on contributors

Emily A. Waterman

Emily A. Waterman, Ph.D., is a faculty member in developmental psychology at Bennington College. The goal of her research program is to prevent youth sexual and dating violence (SDV) and improve response to SDV, ultimately reducing the negative impact of SDV on youth.

Katie M. Edwards

Katie M. Edwards, Ph.D. is an associate professor of Educational Psychology and faculty at the Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Dr. Edwards' interdisciplinary program of research focuses broadly on better understanding the causes and consequences of interpersonal violence, primarily intimate partner violence and sexual assault among youth.

Victoria L. Banyard

Victoria Banyard, PhD., is a professor in the School of Social Work at Rutgers University and Associate Director of the Center on Violence Against Women and Children. She has authored over 200 research articles on the effects and prevention of interpersonal violence including the resilience of survivors and the role of empowered bystanders.