![[ Visit Client Website ]](images/banner.jpg)
Sexual assault is a traumatic event that may also have lasting lifelong effects on physical and mental health. The goals of this report is to estimate the prevalence of sexual assault and its relation to specific health risk factors and leading causes of morbidity in Kansas’s women over the age of 18 years old.
METHODS:
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is a random digit dialing telephone-based survey of non-institutionalized Kansas adults 18 years and older. In 2011, Kansas BRFSS implemented a state-added module to assess the impact of sexual assault for Kansas’s adults in the 2011 survey. The prevalence of overall sexual assault among Kansas women 18 years and older was estimated along with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Sexual assault was defined as sex after a woman said or showed that the she didn’t want to or without her consent. The bivariate associations were analyzed using crude odd ratios (OR) to examine women’s experiences with sexual assault in relation to their social demographic characteristics. Logistic regression analysis was used to model each of the health outcomes as a function of sexual assault.
RESULTS:
The lifetime prevalence of sexual assault for Kansas’s women was 8.6% (95% CI 7.2% to 9.9%) in 2011. The odds of having anxiety or current depression were higher among sexual assault victims (OR=3.5, 95%CI 2.4 to 5.2 and OR= 4.8 95% CI 3.1 to 7.5, respectively). After controlling for social demographic factors such as age, education, race, health care coverage, and marital status; odds of being a heavy drinker (OR=2.5, 95% CI 1.1% to 5.9%), being a current smoker (OR=2.7, 95% CI 1.9% to 4.4%),having high cholesterol (OR=1.8, 95% CI 1.2% to 2.6%), having a heart attack(OR=2.0, 95% CI 1.2% to 3.4%) , having depression (OR=3.8, 95% CI 2.6% to 5.6%) and having a disability (OR=3.8, 95% CI 2.5% to 5.6%) were higher among sexual assault victims. There were no significant associations of obesity and hypertension with sexual assault.
CONCLUSIONS: This report shows associations between victims of sexual assault and health risk factors. Sexual assault is not rare and may have long lasting effects of health risk factors that cause morbidity. Even though these associations are seen through this cross-sectional study, it is important to conduct future research to further investigate temporality of sexual assaults and health risk factors.