Increasing Social and Economic Inclusion (ISEI) Project
Grant funding: UW-Madison
This project is a collaboration with Dr. Jeneile Luebke (Nursing) and Dr. LB Klein (Social Work). The aims of this project are to:
- Understand barriers to accessing various forms of post-assault care among sexual violence survivors and key stakeholders (forensic nurses, mental health providers, advocates, hospital administrators)
- Develop and test a survivor-specific measure of barriers to care
- Examine associations between survivor experiences with either lack of care or poor care experiences and associated long-term health disparities in a large national sample
We are especially interested in survivors who are disenfranchised on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. Findings have the potential to illuminate important barriers to care that could be addressed by systems and policies to reduce long-term health disparities among sexual violence survivors.
Video and Text Messaging Intervention Among Sexual Violence Survivors Project
Grant funding: National Institute on Drug Abuse
This project aims to develop a new video, Skills Training in Active Recovery (STAR), and a 3-week daily text messaging program, TextSTAR, to better address Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and opioid misuse among recent sexual violence survivors.
We will start by developing the STAR video and TextSTAR program then elicit feedback from a community advisory board of sexual assault (SA) survivors to maximize acceptability and utility of the intervention. Next, we will pilot test the intervention with a separate sample of survivors to gather preliminary data about our recruitment approach, acceptability of the intervention, and efficacy. Lastly, we will conduct a Sequential, Multiple Assignment, Randomized Trial (SMART) where survivors will be randomized to receive the STAR video or no video at the emergency department, assessed 1 week later with those above threshold for acute stress/PTSD or opioid use/misuse/disorder randomized to receive the TextSTAR intervention or no text intervention for 3 weeks, and reassessed at 1, 3, and 6 months for PTSD and opioid misuse or disorder.
If efficacious, this intervention would be a low-cost and easy-to-disseminate approach to reduce PTSD and opioid outcomes among SA survivors.
Barriers to Accessing Campus and Community Services for Sexual Violence (OVC) Study
Grant funding: U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crimes
The aim of this project is to understand students’ perceptions of barriers or facilitators to accessing services and resources for violence survivors both on- and off-campus. Services and resources include university health services, crisis counseling or mental health services, Title IX, accommodations, police/criminal justice, forensic medical exams, and domestic abuse services/shelters.
We are especially interested in understanding whether students perceive that such services are inclusive and accommodating to all students and how existing services could be augmented or changed to ensure that students who are disproportionately at risk for violence are able to access the services they need.
The Drivers of Risk and Institutional-level Vulnerability and Environment (DRIVE) Study
Grant funding: Application in process
This project is a collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Hirsch and Dr. Silvia Martins at Columbia University. Through this project, we plan to examine associations among state policies, institutional-level characteristics, and binge drinking and peer victimization (sexual violence and racist and anti-sexual and gender minority discrimination). This examination of the institutional and state policy environments responds to CDC’s recommendation to study the full ecology of violence and the co-occurrence of multiple forms of violence and to NIAAA’s funded work on the importance of environmental approaches to binge drinking. The lack of high-quality outcome data, which has been a key barrier to this type of rigorous cross-campus comparative work, is addressed through a unique partnership with the Higher Education Data Sharing (HEDS) Consortium, which rigorously assesses binge drinking, sexual assault, and discrimination-related victimization at campuses across the country
Related papers:
Sex Trading among University Students Study
Grant funding: Application in process
This project is a collaboration with Dr. Lara Gerassi at UW-Madison’s School of Social Work. Trading sex for compensation (e.g., money, drugs, alcohol) is a public health problem that is associated with vulnerability to sexual and physical victimization and increased risk for sexual risk behaviors/STIs, substance use, and mental health disorders. The transition from adolescence to adulthood, and specifically high school to college, may heighten the risk of sex trading, as students are often living on their own, paying separate living expenses, navigating new relationships, including sexual ones, and experimenting with substance use. Despite its importance, rigorous empirical research on sex trading among U.S. university students is lacking.
Related papers:
Daily Diary of Alcohol and Sexual Behaviors Project
Grant funding: Application in process
A majority of the studies examining sexually aggressive behaviors tend to focus on static risk factors (baseline or cross-sectional data). Recent prospective, longitudinal studies have begun to illuminate nuances in the relationship between sexual aggression and risk factors, including alcohol use, over time and at various ecological levels (Swartout et al., 2015; Testa et al., 2018; Thompson et al., 2018). However, many of these studies have assessed participants either annually or semesterly, which may not provide important data about temporally sensitive risk factors for sexual aggression. The Daily Diary project plans to extend research in this domain to better illuminate proximal risk factors for sexual aggression that can inform future intervention and prevention strategies.
Related papers:
Wisconsin Domestic Violence Housing First (DVHF) Project
Grant funding: Domestic Violence Housing First Evaluation Grant, Wisconsin Department of Children and Families
This project is a collaboration with Dr. Mariel Barnes at UW-Madison’s School of Public Affairs and Dr. Kaitlyn Sims at the University of Denver. As part of the DVHF program, nine domestic violence organizations across Wisconsin have received pilot funding to implement the Housing First philosophy – that is, instead of emergency shelter or transitional housing, organizations should prioritize safe, stable, and permanent housing for those leaving abusive situations. The team plans to evaluate the impact of this pilot at both the individual level to determine whether recipients of DVHF funds have better long-term housing, financial, health, educational, and life satisfaction outcomes, and at the organization level to assess whether DVHF is an effective strategy for lessening the enormous economic and social costs of domestic violence. Most importantly, the findings of this evaluation will have important implications for how policymakers fund supportive services related to domestic violence in Wisconsin and beyond.