A life course approach to determining the prevalence and impact of sexual violence in Australia: The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health

Research aim/s

The specific aims of this project were to: 

1. Determine the prevalence of sexual violence across the life course, including sexual violence experienced in childhood and adulthood, perpetrated both within an intimate relationship and outside of such a relationship.
2. Determine the role of sexual violence during childhood as a risk factor for experiencing multiple forms of violence later in life.
3. Identify the impact of sexual violence on socio-economic factors over time, such as education, paid employment and financial stress.
4. Determine the nature of associations between sexual violence experienced by women at different life stages and subsequent health behaviours.
5. Assess the impact of sexual violence on women’s physical and mental health.
6. Measure health service use in relation to sexual violence, including costs of selected health services and satisfaction with general practitioner services.
7. Identify factors associated with the general health and wellbeing of women who have experienced sexual violence.

Methods

This project used data from the ALSWH, a national, longitudinal, population-based survey examining the health of over 57,000 Australian women. The ALSWH explores factors that influence health and wellbeing among women who are broadly representative of the Australian population, and it is the largest project of its kind ever conducted in Australia. The ALSWH is a national research resource providing an evidence base to the government and other decision-making bodies within Australia for the development and evaluation of policy and practice in many areas of service delivery that affect women.