Assessing Incidence of Sexual Assault (SA) and Needs of SA Survivors via Random Digit Dialing

Abstract

Author: Mary Simmerling, University of Chicago, mcs@uchicago.edu Goal. To determine the incidence of sexual assault (SA) within the community and to do a needs assessment for SA survivors in the community. The study will use random digit dialing (RDD) to households in the community. The research assistants working on the project will ask the person who answers the phone if she may speak to any females in the home over the age of 18. If there are any qualifying subjects in the home, they will be invited to participate in a 45 minute survey about their experience(s) of violence in the community. The survey will include demographic questions, specific questions about SA experience(s), and the subjects’ help-seeking behavior and post-assault needs. Study methods include completing a survey questionnaire about the survivor participant’s sexual assault experience(s), and participating in an in-depth interview that focuses on general life history as well as specific information about the sexual assault(s). Ethical and scientific justification. There is alleged to be a high incidence of SA that is never reported to the police or others. Consequently, it is difficult to gauge the actual incidence of SA within a community. This study would gauge the incidence of SA in the community, and assess the needs of SA survivors. RDD permits representative sampling that will help to inform estimates of actual incidence as well as the needs of non-reporting and reporting SA survivors. SA survivors who do not come forward to report their assault may also be less likely to self-select to participate in research in this topic. The use of RDD may help to identify and include those survivors in this type of research. The use of RDD may also allow for increased privacy protection for participants who may not be comfortable participating in face-to-face interviews on this topic. Ethical objections or barriers. Asking survivors to recall their assault experiences may be re-traumatizing for them, cause emotional distress, and leave them worse off in terms of their recovery (e.g., may exacerbate PTSD). This may be particularly pronounced in research that utilizes RDD in which subjects are not self-selecting as they would be in the case of advertisements for participants in such a study. Although the use of RDD allows for the inclusion of non-reporting SA survivors who may not otherwise come forward to participate, it may be experienced as an invasion of privacy by these individuals. The use of RDD to reach out to non-reporting SA survivors may result in their first disclosures being to the researchassistant interviewers. This may be very distressing to subjects whose first disclosure might better be to a trained counselor. As “vulnerable subjects” survivors need to be protected from risks such as shame, stigma, and emotional distress. Also, they may have “limited autonomy” and so not be positioned to choose freely whether to participate and if so to what extent. Suggested empirical questions: