Who can prevent dating and sexual violence? Demographics related to actionist opportunity in an adult community sample

While dating and sexual violence (DSV) prevention through bystander intervention receives much attention in college samples, adult community samples and rural communities receive comparatively little study. An understanding of bystander actionist opportunities, who are the bystanders that have the opportunity to act to prevent to violence, is lacking. The goal of this study is to explore whether various individual identities relate to actionist opportunity rates in DSV situations. Mailed surveys were collected from 1,529 adults in a rural community sample. Five factors (sex, relationship status, race/ethnicity, income, and age) were compared to rates of witnessing six DSV actionist opportunities (victim blaming, supporting a survivor, hearing neighbors fight, seeing a couple fight, seeing an intoxicated person alone, and seeing an assault) using logistic regression models. Both age and household income were inversely related to an increased likelihood of witnessing most DSV situations. Bystander sex was related to a great likelihood of noticing an intoxicated person all alone. Being in a relationship recently was related to more opportunities to support a survivor and of noticing a couple fighting on the street. Bystander race was not related to any opportunity rates. These findings suggest that opportunity to intervene deserves more attention in studies of DSV prevention among community samples. Bystander intervention education efforts in community settings should be tailored with consideration of the intended audience demographics. Programs should move beyond race or sex of the attendees to also include things such as relationship status, community income level, or age.
Author(s): Andrew J. Rizzo [sup.1] , Victoria Banyard [sup.2] , Katie M. Edwards [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.167436.1, 0000 0001 2192 7145, University of New Hampshire, , 03824, Durham, NH, [...]