Domestic Abuse & Sexual Assault Intervention Services
PRIMARY PREVENTION
Primary prevention combines traditional health promotion with specific protection in order to prevent diseases, illness, and unfavorable behaviors from occurring. Under the scope of domestic violence and sexual assault, the public health community uses the term primary prevention to describe interventions designed to prevent the onset of an event of perpetration or victimization. Primary prevention strategies focus on eliminating or reducing factors that may put an individual at an increased risk for perpetration and by promoting factors that protect individuals from victimization.
Risk Factors for Perpetration of Power Bases Violence
Individual Risk Factors
- Alcohol and drug use
- Delinquency
- Empathic deficits
- General aggressiveness and acceptance of violence
- Early sexual initiation
- Coercive sexual fantasies
- Preference for impersonal sex and sexual-risk taking
- Exposure to sexually explicit media
- Hostility towards women
- Adherence to traditional gender role norms
- Hyper-masculinity
- Suicidal behavior
- Prior sexual victimization or perpetration
Relationship Factors
- Family environment characterized by physical violence and conflict
- Childhood history of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse
- Emotionally unsupportive family environment
- Poor parent-child relationships, particularly with fathers
- Association with sexually aggressive, hyper-masculine, and delinquent peers
- Involvement in a violent or abusive intimate relationship
Community Factors
- Poverty
- Lack of employment opportunities
- Lack of institutional support from police and judicial system
- General tolerance of sexual violence within the community
- Weak community sanctions against sexual violence perpetrators
Societal Factors
- Societal norms that support sexual violence
- Societal norms that support male superiority and sexual entitlement
- Societal norms that maintain women’s inferiority and sexual submissiveness
- Weak laws and policies related to sexual violence and gender equity
- High levels of crime and other forms of violence
Resources & Links
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/sexualviolence/index.html
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/index.html
