{"id":641432,"date":"2025-03-03T11:05:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T16:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=641432"},"modified":"2025-03-03T14:03:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T19:03:20","slug":"study-how-prevent-child-sexual-abuse-641432","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/study-how-prevent-child-sexual-abuse-641432\/","title":{"rendered":"3 ways to reduce child sexual abuse rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study finds that local, community-wide education efforts can drastically lower incidence of sexual abuse of children.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The sexual abuse of children affects 15 percent of girls and 8 percent of boys worldwide<\/a>, incurring high public costs and devastating consequences for its survivors. In the United States, at least one in four girls and one in 20 boys experience sexual abuse<\/a>. A US Preventive Services Task Force report<\/a> recently concluded there\u2019s not enough evidence that prevention is effective.<\/p>\n

Now, a new study<\/a> published in JAMA Pediatrics<\/em> provides the missing evidence that coordinated, community-wide primary prevention efforts can significantly reduce child sexual abuse rates. The counties in the study that received the educational measures saw a 17 percent decrease in substantiated<\/em> child sexual abuse cases, and a 34 percent drop in unsubstantiated<\/em> sexual abuse cases, compared to a control group that didn\u2019t receive these measures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat translates to 110 fewer abused children and substantial public cost savings because of fewer unsubstantiated cases that needed to be investigated,\u201d says lead author Jennie Noll<\/a>, a professor in the Department of Psychology<\/a> at the University of Rochester<\/a> and the executive director of the University\u2019s Mt. Hope Family Center<\/a>. The center is one of just three academic institutional partnerships chosen by the National Institutes of Health to serve as a national resource<\/a> for child maltreatment research and training.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Noll and other researchers first devised and then, from 2018 to 2020, field tested education and information strategies designed to prevent child sexual abuse across five counties in Pennsylvania. As a control group, the team tracked another set of five Pennsylvania counties that did not receive the interventions.<\/p>\n

What lies at the core of the intervention\u2019s success? Education measures that are geared at three distinct groups, according to the findings.<\/h3>\n

1. Training for elementary school children<\/h4>\n

Elementary students in all five counties (about 17,000 second graders in total) received the evidence-based Safe Touches program, delivered in a single class period. The training used puppets and age-appropriate scenarios to teach body safety rules, how to identify a safe adult, and how to disclose sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

According to Noll, this first component reached the largest target audience\u2014close to 100 percent of second graders in the five studied counties. The school-administered intervention, she says, essentially boils down to teaching children what sexual abuse is, how to spot it, that it\u2019s never their fault, that \u201cif something happens to them that feels icky\u2014it likely is icky,\u201d that there are safe adults and non-safe adults, and that telling a safe adult is always a good idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically teaching kids that there are safe environments and unsafe environments\u2014and how to know the difference, and how to get help,\u201d says Noll.<\/p>\n

Noll and other child sexual abuse prevention experts highlight what every elementary-aged child should know about sexual abuse:<\/p>\n