Sexual Assault Among Latinas

The Sexual Assault Among Latinas (SALAS) Study adds to the literature by using a national sample of Latino women to determine the extent of sexual victimization alone and the overlap of sexual victimization with other forms of victimization. Additional distinguishing components of SALAS includes an investigation of formal and informal help-seeking responses; inclusion of culturally - relevant variables such as religiosity, gender role ideology and acculturation in relation to victimization and help-seeking; and assessing the psychosocial impact of sexual victimization on psychological distress and posttraumatic symptomatology.A national sample of 2,000 adult Latino women living in high-density Latino neighborhoods participated. Trained professionals from an experienced survey research firm conducted interviews over the phone in either English or Spanish, from May through September 2008. Respondents were queried about lifetime victimization, help-seeking efforts, acculturation, religiosity, gender role ideology, trauma symptoms, and post-traumatic symptoms. Respondents were on average 47.76 years of age and largely foreign-born (72.4%).The lifetime rate of sexual victimization was 17.2% with 87.5% of sexual victims experiencing another form of victimization (physical, threat, stalking or witness) within their lifetime. Sexual victimization mostly commonly occurred with physical victimization in childhood (47.3%) and threatened victimization in adulthood (55.9%). Victims of child sexual assault were more likely to experience any form of adult victimization (OR = 4.59, p