Abstract

Sexual violence (SV) is a global public health problem that is impacted by social norms and gender inequity. In the United States, nearly 1 in 5 women have experienced rape or attempted rape and 1 in 17 men have been made to sexually penetrate someone in their lifetime. SV also shares many risk and protective factors with other violence types experienced throughout the lifespan. Researchers and practitioners still face challenges with tracking implementation of SV prevention strategies and demonstrating public health impacts. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) administers the national Rape Prevention Education Program (RPE) to address SV risk and protective factors and prevent first SV occurrences. From 2016–2017, RPE’s 50 state and four territorial recipients funded 485 local organizations to implement prevention strategies in over 1 300 sites. CDC monitored implementation and risk and protective factors addressed by its recipients. In addition, CDC supported 12 recipients to use publicly available data to track SV outcomes within their state. The majority of prevention strategies (75%) were developed in practice settings, but most of these strategies aligned with CDC’s STOP SV technical package, a core set of SV prevention strategies based on the best available evidence. Most recipients implement educational strategies intended to impact knowledge and behaviors and community strategies to impact social norms. Fewer strategies, however, focus on improving gender equity through economic and leadership opportunities. RPE recipients identified publicly available data to measure some SV outcomes, as well as other data sources within their states. RPE is the first U.S. national program to track implementation of prevention strategies and linked SV indicators. Recipients may need greater support to implement gender equity-focused strategies. Publicly available combined with state-specific data sources may be an effective way for CDC to build the case for national public health impacts.