Introduction: The commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is a multibillion-dollar industry victimizing over 1 million children around the globe. The typical victim in 1 city in the southeastern United States is an African American girl 12–14 years old. There has been little research investigating the characteristics of girls placed at risk for CSEC and even less research on the personal perspectives of these girls.
Conclusion: Our research shows how girls placed at risk for CSEC view their own lives. These children described violence and sexual exploitation and cited limited supports to protect them from these risks. Understanding the perspectives of these girls should generate future research and intervention strategies to support their coping and resilience.
Introduction: The purpose of this analysis is to describe the response rates from three violence-focused research studies when the recruitment emails are sent from a campus office, researcher or survey sampling firm.
Conclusion: The sender of recruitment emails for electronic surveys may be an important factor in response rates for violence-focused research. For researchers identification of best practices for survey methodology is needed to promote accurate disclosure and increase response rates.
Introduction Despite several recent studies documenting high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) among gay and bisexual men (GBM), the literature is silent regarding GBM’s perceptions of IPV within their community. We examine GBM’s perceptions of same-sex IPV: its commonness, its severity, and the helpfulness of a hypothetical police response to a GBM experiencing IPV.
Conclusion: The results support a minority stress hypothesis to understand GBM’s perceptions of police helpfulness in response to IPV. While IPV was viewed as both common and problematic among GBM, their previous experiences of homophobia were correlated with a learned anticipation of rejection and stigma from law enforcement.
Introduction: Given the power of economic data to influence policy making, the goal of this study is to produce the first estimate of the economic impact of IPV in Ecuador and to identify the policy paths in which these estimates would have the greatest impact for Ecuador.
Conclusion: The asymmetry between the economic burden of IPV and the amount of government resources devoted to IPV prevention efforts suggests the need for a greater role to be played by the government and other factors in society in the area of IPV prevention.
Introduction: A growing body of empirical research documents a significant co-occurrence of suicide attempts and interpersonal violence among youth. However, the potential role of early alcohol use initiation and current heavy alcohol use as correlates of this comorbidity has not been examined in a nationally representative sample of high school students.
Conclusion: These findings underscore the importance of both early alcohol use initiation and heavy drinking as statistically significant correlates of comorbid fighting and suicide attempts among youth. While future research is needed to determine the temporal ordering between problem drinking and violent or suicidal behaviors, existing prevention programs may benefit from including components aimed at reducing and delaying alcohol use.
Introduction: Little is known about the risk and protective factors for youth sexual violence (SV) perpetration across different types of relationships. This study examined factors associated with perpetrating SV against a dating partner and a same-sex peer.
Conclusion: Data suggest that programs to prevent SV perpetration for both relationship types should start when students are young, with particular focus on middle school boys. Prevention efforts should have slightly different foci to address these 2 types of SV perpetration.
Introduction: The purpose of this study is to examine the associations between demographic characteristics, school climate and psychosocial factors, and willingness to intervene in a bullying situation among middle and high school students in Georgia.
Conclusion: These findings, while preliminary, indicate that girls, students who are white, and students who experience a relatively positive school climate and adaptive psychosocial factors are more likely to report that they would intervene in bullying situations. These findings may guide how bullying is addressed in schools and underscore the importance of safe school climates.
Introduction: Despite a recent focus on intimate partner violence (IPV) among men who have sex with men (MSM), the male-male couple is largely absent from the IPV literature. Specifically, research on dyadic factors shaping IPV in male-male couples is lacking.
Conclusion: The results point to several unique factors shaping the reporting of IPV within male-male couples and highlight the need for intervention efforts and prevention programs that focus on male couples, a group largely absent from both research and prevention efforts.
Introduction: The aging population is a rapidly growing demographic in the United States. Isolation, limited autonomy, and declining physical and mental health render many older adults vulnerable to elder mistreatment (EM). The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence and correlates of EM among a sample of older adults using legal assistance services in Atlanta, Georgia.
Conclusion: The rates of EM risk in this sample were higher than those previously reported in research. Findings support continued examination of unique risks that may be present among older adults who may be possibly facing legal issues.
Introduction: To assess the prevalence of risk factors for violent injury among young adults treated at an urban emergency department (ED).
Conclusion: Over 30% of young adults presenting to an urban ED reported high exposure to risk factors for violent injury. The high prevalence of these risk factors among ED patients highlights the potential benefit of a survey instrument to identify youth who might benefit from a targeted, ED-based violence prevention program.
The Emory Center for Injury Control is a multi-university consortium dedicated to studying and preventing unintentional injuries and violence. A major goal of our Center is to transcend academic boundaries and disciplines to connect research to practice. As such, we are focusing our fourth special Western Journal of Emergency Medicine issue on multidisciplinary research.
