Women’s vulnerability to sexual assault from adolescence to young adulthood (original) (raw)
2000, Journal of Adolescent Health
Purpose: To study the vulnerability to sexual assault among undergraduate women. Methods: The respondents were demographically representative of undergraduate women in state-supported universities in the United States. Participants (N = 1569) were surveyed using the Sexual Experiences Survey at the beginning and end of their 1st year and at the end of each of the next 3 years of their undergraduate career. Survival analysis was used to determine the risk of initial victimization during specific time intervals from the age of 14 years through the collegiate years as a function of prior victimization. Odds analyses were used to analyze the main and interactive effects of victimization at prior time periods on the probability of victimization at subsequent time periods. Results: Victimization before the age of 14 years almost doubled the risk of later adolescent victimization (1.8). Furthermore, for those with and without childhood victimization, the risk of an initial sexual assault after the age of 14 years occurred most often in late adolescence, and declined each year thereafter (aged 18-22 years). Sexual victimization among university women was highest for those who had been first assaulted in early adolescence (4.6 times nonvictims). Detailed analyses revealed that the more severe the adolescent experience the greater the risk of collegiate revictimization. Adolescent victims of rape or attempted rape, in particular, were 4.4 times more likely to be as seriously assaulted during their 1st year of college. Conclusion: A linear path model is suggested. Childhood victimization increased the risk of adolescent victimization, which in turn significantly affected the likelihood of revictimization among college women. Article: Sexual victimization, particularly of adolescents and young adults, is endemic in U.S. culture. In a national probability sample of 4008 adult women, it was found that one in eight women reported being the victim of rape sometime in their lifetimes, resulting in 12.1 million victims (1). The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that the number of sexual assaults occurring each year is well over 700,000 (2). Adolescents and young adults are disproportionately victims of sexual assault. The most recent findings of the National Crime Victimization Survey indicate that half of all sexual assault victims are aged 12-24 years (2). The National Victims Center has reported that most rapes occur before the age of 24 years, with 54% occurring between ages 11 years and 24 years, and an additional 29% before the age of 11 years (1). Similarly, Koss et al. (3), in the only national
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