New Study Will Be First To Trace Global Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse Perpetration
A five-year study will develop the world’s first comprehensive estimates of the prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) perpetration in at least six countries, yielding methodologies that can be replicated across diverse regions and delivering the statistical cornerstone needed to prevent CSA before it happens.
The program will be carried out by the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in collaboration with the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group (The Royal) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The team will also work closely with colleagues at the University of Edinburgh’s global data institute for child safety.
“There is an established four-step approach to preventing any public health risk, and the first step is to understand its prevalence. But there has never been funding to rigorously evaluate prevalence or identify different risk and protective factors associated with perpetration that could point toward the best prevention pathways. When it comes to prevention, we’ve been operating in the dark. Now there is new hope for sparing countless potential victims the pain of child sexual abuse and exploitation, and preventing potential perpetrators the legal and moral consequences of engaging in abusive behaviors,” said Elizabeth J. Letourneau, PhD, director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.
“Only a few studies to date have looked at the scope of child sexual abuse perpetration, and they’ve been limited to specific populations in the world’s wealthier countries. Now, for the first time, we have funding to better understand the factors that can lead to child sexual abuse or prevent it, based on a well-defined set of behaviors and a common series of research questions, definitions, and methods,” said Michael Seto, PhD, C.Psych, director of the Forensic Research Unit at the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research at the Royal.
What is particularly exciting about this study is the collaboration with the CDC, which has conducted victimization-focused prevalence studies in dozens of countries. By adding a new module of questions to the CDC’s Violence Against Children Surveys, the study team can quickly begin to estimate perpetration prevalence around the world.
“Understanding the scope of a public health problem is always the first step in preventing it. This study will estimate the prevalence of child sexual abuse perpetration for the first time.”
-Elizabeth J. Letourneau, PhD, Director, Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse
“I am very excited to build on our partnership with Elizabeth Letourneau and her team at the Moore Center for the Prevention of Sexual Abuse with this critically needed project to understand the prevalence of child sexual abuse perpetration at an international scale. We cannot fully address this global problem without measuring it accurately.”
-Michael Seto, PhD, C.Psych, Forensic Research Director, Royal Ottowa Health Care Group
“CDC is committed to this collaboration with Johns Hopkins University to make sure better data are available to address the urgent public health problem of child sexual abuse.”
-Greta Massetti, PhD, Field Epidemiology and Prevention Branch Chief, Division of Violence Prevention, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention