Child abuse prevention education policies increase reports of child sexual abuse

Abstract

BackgroundIt is well supported that engaging in prevention education increases a child's awareness of child sexual abuse. However, due to methodological limitations, prior research has yet to determine whether this knowledge leads to increases in reporting or substantiation of child sexual abuse. ObjectiveWe examined whether state mandates for school-based prevention education correlate to changes in reports of child sexual abuse. MethodsWe used a quasi-experimental design to investigate the association between child sexual abuse report rates from 2005 to 2019 and presence of state legislation mandating school-based child sexual abuse prevention curricula. Child sexual abuse report data were obtained from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System child files. We focused on reports for school-aged children ages 5–17. Data on state laws on prevention curricula were extracted from enoughabuse.org, Prevent Child Abuse America, ErinsLaw.org, and directly from published legislation. ResultsState education mandates were associated with an increase in the incidence of child sexual abuse reports made by education personnel (IRR = 1.22, 95 % CI, 1.01–1.48). Policies were not associated with increases in incidence of child sexual abuse reports made by non-education personnel (IRR = 1.08, 95 % CI, 0.95–1.22) or decreases in likelihood that any given report was confirmed (OR = 1.00; 95 % CI, 0.90–1.12). ConclusionsThere is moderate evidence that adopting state mandates for child sexual abuse prevention education may increase disclosures and reporting of child sexual abuse by school-based sources. There is no evidence that mandates decrease the validity of child sexual abuse reporting by school-based sources.