by STEPHANIE KOVALCHIK
The United States is experiencing an epidemic of sexual violence. New findings from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), a study launched by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2010, report that nearly 1 in 5 women are estimated to have been the victims of rape, defined as unwanted completed or attempted sexual penetration, including victims who did not have the capacity to give consent (owing to intoxication, for example). In almost all cases, the perpetrator was someone the victim knew (91.9%) and more than half of the time was their own partner. Young adulthood was the period of highest risk for first sexual victimization. For 80% of female victims, first rape occurred before age 25; for 42%, before age 18.
Although the lifetime prevalence of stalking was surprisingly less than the prevalence of non-consensual sexual contact, incidence estimates for the past year suggest that this trend could be changing as new communication technologies introduce new opportunities for sexual harassment. In 2010, the study estimates that 1.27 million American woman were raped–equivalent to one woman every 29 seconds–and 5.1 million were stalked–equivalent to one woman every 7 seconds.
These are a few of the key findings from the first annual report of what will be an ongoing, nationally representative survey of sexual violence in the US. The NISVS will be a great resource to public health researchers. Using the data collected by the NISVS, investigators will be able to monitor national and state-specific trends in the prevalence of sexual violence and stalking for the first time, to characterize the type of individuals who are at the highest risk of being a victim or a perpetrator of a sexual crime (whether physical or psychological), and to investigate the health consequences of sexual victimization.
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