New sexual violence and dating violence data from YBRSS

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released the 2011 findings from the Youth Behavior Risk Surveillance System (YRBSS).  This survey asks about a wide range of health issues including dating violence and sexual violence. During the 12 months before the survey, 9.4% of students nationwide had been hit, slapped, or physically hurt on purpose by their boyfriend or girlfriend and 8% of students had ever been physically forced to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to.  The research actually breaks out rates for each grade showing how victimization rates increase each year pointing to a need to provide prevention activities earlier.

You can find the full findings here.

How does this data inform how we will do our prevention work?