What Interventions and Prevention Measures in Campus Sexual Violence Prevention Efforts Can Better Serve LGBTQ Students

Dookeran, Keith, Hennessy Garza, Rose, Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health, Mentor, Oral Presentation, Projects, Rubbani, Shayla, School and College, Student

Shayla Rubbani, “What Interventions and Prevention Measures in Campus Sexual Violence Prevention Efforts Can Better Serve LGBTQ Students?”
Mentors: Keith Dookeran and Rose Hennessy Garza, Public Health
Oral Presentation Block 1

What interventions and prevention measures in campus sexual violence prevention efforts can better serve LGBTQ students? The lack of inclusive prevention for sexual violence is a problem on college campuses. Research suggests that 73% of LGBTQ college students experienced sexual harassment and assault at some point during their college career. During our practitioner-driven solutions to increase inclusive prevention efforts, we conducted two focus groups with eight participants, we are analyzing the results with deductive and inductive thematic coding. Participants represented three college campuses in the Midwest that currently work to implement sexual violence prevention and diversity/inclusion efforts on their campus. Preliminary findings suggest there are issues in University policies and procedures such as Title IX and bias that impact reporting on campus. Under the Obama administration 130 institutions were investigated for potential Title IX reporting violations. Campuses could improve their implementation of comprehensive programming. On campuses, sexual violence education is offered freshman year from the standpoint of telling people how to not become victims of sexual violence. Increased efforts should focus on shattering the LGBTQ stigma, including efforts specific for Queer males and transgender-identifying individuals. Collaboration with more LGBTQ community-based organizations and resources could be useful in connecting LGBTQ persons to community resources while taking the demands off the university’s resources. With this study we hope to identify themes to understand which efforts could increase diversity in sexual violence prevention efforts. With these recommendations we will develop a research initiative to address the primary suggestions from campus providers and subsequently pursue participatory action research to diversity campus prevention efforts.