Coercive Sexual Environments: Neighborhoods Influences on Sexual Health and Safety

In our previous studies of distressed neighborhoods, we theorize that when disadvantage and violence are high and collective efficacy and social control are low, a gender-specific neighborhood mechanism can emerge that has differential effects on male and female youth. We argue that some communities develop a coercive sexual environment (CSE) where harassment, domestic violence, and sexual exploitation of women and girls are normalized and result in a climate of fear of both intimate partner violence and sexual assault victimization.

 Our Housing Opportunity and Services Together (HOST) Demonstration has offered us a unique platform for developing robust measures and testing the relationship between neighborhood concentrated disadvantage, the development of coercive sexual environments and negative outcomes for youth.  HOST tests two-generation place-based strategies to improve outcomes for vulnerable families living in public and assisted housing. Our Washington, DC site incorporates a focus on teens and sexual health and safety. The HOST baseline survey uses new indicators based on our previous research and our qualitative work in DC intended to measure both CSE and sexual harassment (SH). 

Using the baseline survey, we developed CSE and sexual harassment scales for adults and youth.  We find that both the CSE and SH scales behave like other key measures of neighborhood health like social disorder, violence, and collective efficacy. Further, we find that both adult and youth respondents reporting higher levels of CSE and harassment also report higher levels of depression and anxiety.