#MeToo: Associations of educational institution religious affiliation with sexual health services and rates of sexual assault

Abstract

Objective: To explore the association of educational institution religious affiliation with provision of sexual health services and rates of sexual violence. Participants: Analysis of 500 US college/university websites; secondary data obtained from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Methods: Content analysis documented institutional religious affiliation and availability of sexual health services. Chi-square tests examined association of services with religious affiliation, while negative binomial models compared rape/fondling rates obtained from NCES between Christian/non-Christian schools. Results: Results demonstrated an overall deficit in services, with Christian campuses significantly less likely to offer 13 service. Christian schools had increased reports of rape (years 2015/2016) and fondling (year 2015). Conclusions: Results highlight insufficiency of sexual health services and the need for future research on specific forms of services available and other factors impacting sexual violence. Findings illuminate the importance of a campus’ social environment on sexual assault occurrences/reporting and structuring services to meet student needs.

Keywords:

• Health center
• #MeToo
• rape
• religion
• sexual assault

Acknowledgments

The current work is the result of the first author’s honors thesis, advised by the second author, and completed during her time as an undergraduate student in the Department of Public Health and Health Education at The College at Brockport – State University of New York.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and was deemed non-human subjects research by the Institutional Review Board of The College at Brockport – State University of New York.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, SP, upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 Public/Private affiliation was not evaluated as a covariate, as all religious schools were also private.

2 Zero-inflated negative binomial models were also considered in assessing models without covariates but showed no improvement in fit over standard negative binomial models. Thus, negative binomial models were used for all remaining analyses.