Online Program

327586
Coercive Sexual Environments: Neighborhoods Influences on Sexual Health and Safety


Wednesday, November 4, 2015 : 8:30 a.m. - 8:50 a.m.

Susan Popkin, PhD, Metropolitan Housing and Communities Center, Urban Institute, Washington, DC
Jay Silverman, PhD, Medicine, Division of Global Public Health, Center on Gender Equity and Health, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Janine Zweig, Ph.D., Justice Policy Center, Urban Institute, Washington, DC
Reed Jordan, Metropolitan Housing and Communitties Policy Center, Urban Institute, Washington, DC
Chantal Hailey, Department of Sociology, New York University, New York, NY
Nan Astone, PhD, Urban Institute, Washington, DC
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.

Learning Areas:

Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Explain how neighborhood sexual environments affect women and girls mental health. Describe how psychometric analysis can be used to develop and validate survey scales. List two scales, developed from eight indicators, that can be used to assess a community's coercive sexual environment.

Keyword(s): Community-Based Research (CBPR), Sexual Risk Behavior

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I direct the Urban Institute's Program on Neighborhood and Youth Development. For the past 25 years I have been the director of numerous federal and foundation funded grants related to place-based interventions, community development, and youth and adult mental and physical health. I currently direct a grant received from the National Institute of Health to implement a Community Based Participatory Research Project focused on sexual health and safety in a Washington, D.C. public housing development.
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.