Original article
Women’s vulnerability to sexual assault from adolescence to young adulthood

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Abstract

Purpose: To study the vulnerability to sexual assault among undergraduate women.

Methods: The respondents were demographically representative of undergraduate women in state-supported universities in the United States. Participants (N = 1569) were surveyed using the Sexual Experiences Survey at the beginning and end of their 1st year and at the end of each of the next 3 years of their undergraduate career. Survival analysis was used to determine the risk of initial victimization during specific time intervals from the age of 14 years through the collegiate years as a function of prior victimization. Odds analyses were used to analyze the main and interactive effects of victimization at prior time periods on the probability of victimization at subsequent time periods.

Results: Victimization before the age of 14 years almost doubled the risk of later adolescent victimization (1.8). Furthermore, for those with and without childhood victimization, the risk of an initial sexual assault after the age of 14 years occurred most often in late adolescence, and declined each year thereafter (aged 18–22 years). Sexual victimization among university women was highest for those who had been first assaulted in early adolescence (4.6 times nonvictims). Detailed analyses revealed that the more severe the adolescent experience the greater the risk of collegiate revictimization. Adolescent victims of rape or attempted rape, in particular, were 4.4 times more likely to be as seriously assaulted during their 1st year of college.

Conclusion: A linear path model is suggested. Childhood victimization increased the risk of adolescent victimization, which in turn significantly affected the likelihood of revictimization among college women.

Section snippets

Methods

Two incoming undergraduate classes of a medium sized state-supported university in the southeastern region of the United States were invited to participate in a 5-year longitudinal study of social experiences. The university is located in a semi-urban environment within the 80th largest city in the nation.

Results

Three sets of analyses were performed. First, the percentages of women experiencing childhood sexual victimization and childhood family violence were calculated. In addition, the percentage of women experiencing no sexual victimization, as well as each type of sexual victimization during adolescence and during each year of college was determined. Chi-square analysis was used to determine the possible relationship between childhood and adolescent victimization. Second, survival analyses were

Discussion

The present analysis of the vulnerability of young women to sexual assault was limited to undergraduate students who entered the study immediately following high school graduation, approximately 90% of whom were residents of one state in the southeastern region of the United States. The findings of our longitudinal investigation of sexual assault of college women nonetheless show a clear pattern of victimization. The highest risk for first victimization occurs in adolescence and consistently

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Grant MH45083 from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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