141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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280795
Sexual harassment victimization and perpetration among high school students


Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Emily Clear, MPH, CHES, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Ann L. Coker, PhD, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, KY
Patty Cook-Craig, PhD, Department of Social Work, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Heather M. Bush, Ph D, Biostatistics, University Of Kentucky, College of Public Health, Lexington, KY
Lisandra Garcia, MPH, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Corrine Williams, ScD, Department of Health Behavior, College of Public Health; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Alysha Lewis, College of Public Health, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Bonnie Fisher, PhD, School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
Background: This is the first large population-based study to examine prevalence rates of sexual harassment occurring during the past 12 months by victimization and perpetration among high school students. Rates of sexual harassment by tactic, direction and sex are reported including the co-occurrence of victimization and perpetration in the past 12 months. This research fills an important gap in the existing research by providing estimates of the frequency of sexual harassment victimization and perpetration among adolescents and by sex and other demographic and violence risk factors.

Methods: In this large cross-sectional survey of students attending 26 high schools in Kentucky, sexual harassment was defined using three questions from the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the three sexual harassment items indicate reasonable internal consistency for victimization (á=.66) and perpetration (á=.71).

Results: Among 18,090 students who completed a 95 item anonymous survey during January-May 2010, 30% disclosed sexual harassment victimization (37% of females, 21% of males) and 8.5% reported perpetration (5% of females, 12% of males). While sexual harassment victimization rates were higher among females (37.1%) than males (21.4%), the inverse pattern was observed for perpetration by sex (females 5.1%; males 12.4%).

Conclusions: Sexual harassment perpetration was highly correlated with male sex, minority race /ethnicity, same sex attraction, bullying, binge drinking, and intraparental partner violence. Females were more likely to self-disclose sexual harassment victimization and males were more likely to self report sexual harassment perpetration.

Learning Areas:

Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Explain the difference between sexual harassment victimization and perpetration by gender. Define sexual harassment as it relates to high school students.

Keyword(s): Adolescents, Youth Violence

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a co author on this paper which is based on a CDC funded grant evaluating if a bystander intervention works to reduce dating and sexual violence among high school students. My research career has focused on the effects of various forms of violence on women’s health.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5016.0: Recent findings in Violence Prevention