Developments in Sexual Assault Resistance Education: Combining Risk Reduction and Primary Prevention

Abstract

Most sexual assault prevention focuses exclusively on primary prevention programs. Risk reduction strategies, however, have an equally important role to play in prevention efforts. By way of illustration, we provide efficacy data on a sexual assault protection program that incorporates both primary prevention and risk reduction within a single seminar. These data, which replicate previous program evaluations while adding two new cohorts of program and control group students, indicate that program participants exhibit long-term attitude change and have significantly reduced rates of assault relative to the control group. Implications for campus programming are discussed.