Myths of Primary Prevention

Hi Friends,

I will keep this short, but have a point I have wanted to make for quite some time. Based upon solid research findings, many colleges and universities have shifted to an emphasis on primary prevention approaches to sexual assault. The term primary prevention refers to those efforts that are directed specifically toward stopping a rapist or perpetrator of sexual assault, as contrasted with information-based programming and risk reduction approaches, which often focus on the victim, rather than the assailant.

Initially, many of the campuses that made this shift were pleased with early data and initial assessments, especially of work to decrease the bystander effect through empowering more effective peer intervention. However, those early promising results have not held up well over time, for many of the campuses that made the shift. Why?

This is just my theory, and I'm open to your perspectives. I believe the emphasis on primary prevention at most of the campuses that made the shift isn't having the hoped-for effect because we threw the baby out with the bathwater. We decided that because information-based programming was of limited measurable effectiveness, and because of the philosophical objection to inherently victim-focused risk reduction programming, that we were going to go full-tilt into primary prevention and leave these marginal other approaches behind.

Whoops! Now we're finding that our students lack the foundation of information, empathy and risk-reduction skills that efforts on bystander empowerment and normative messaging need as a foundation for success. We went with an either/or approach, rather than a both/and. What we're starting to see emerge now is a recognition that developmentally, primary prevention efforts need a solid foundation, or they lack context.

You can't ask people to intervene in high-risk situations if they don't know how to recognize those situations. They need to know more about consent, the role of alcohol, blackouts, rape drugs, etc. to be able to act. I'm a fan of emphasizing primary prevention, but I hope we're learning something interesting as we try to find effective models. The literature on risk reduction and information-based programming didn't say that it didn't work. It just showed that in a vacuum, it was ineffective. Without other supportive and mutually reinforcing efforts, that result makes sense. The same will be shown to be true for primary prevention efforts. In a vacuum, they're not giving us the results they potentially could. So, maybe the problem is the vacuum?

I've argued for years the need to be strategic. We need to research the knowledge and behavioral gaps that exist for our students, and then plug them, methodically with a long-term programmatic strategy. We need a both/and approach. Either/or is useless. I wrote on this in 2006 with the Whitepaper posted at http://www.ncherm.org/pdfs/2006-whitepaper.pdf.

We need these ideas now, more than ever, in my opinion.

Have a great weekend,

Brett Sokolow