(Press-News.org) Web-based training targeted at college-aged men is an effective tool for reducing the number of sexual assaults on U.S. campuses, according to a researcher in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University.
The RealConsent program reduced sexually violent behavior and increased the likelihood a male student would intervene to prevent a sexual assault, said Dr. Laura Salazar, associate professor of health promotion and behavior, who published the findings in the paper, "A Web-Based Sexual Violence Bystander Intervention for Male College Students: Randomized Controlled Trial," in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
The RealConsent training modules are designed to help young men develop empathy for rape victims and to understand the potential legal risks of having sex when one or both partners have been drinking alcohol or using drugs.
"It's focused on helping them not get in trouble, helping them communicate with their sexual partners and teaching them skills to intervene," Salazar said. "It's not focused on 'men are rapists.' "
Salazar said the Web-based approach makes training more cost effective for colleges than in-person, small-group formats, with the promise of reaching many more students.
More than 700 male undergraduate students at a large university were recruited to take part in the study, which surveyed them before the start of the training modules, after the training and six months later. The six-month follow-up found RealConsent participants were more likely to intervene to prevent sexual assault and less likely to perpetrate sexual violence than a control group.
Salazar said the next step is to develop web-based training for young women.
INFORMATION:
Salazar co-authored the study with Alana Vivolo-Kantor of the Centers for Disease Control, James Hardin of the University of South Carolina and independent consultant Alan Berkowitz. The study was funded by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. END
Study: Web-based training can reduce campus rape
2014-09-15
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Study indicates hunting restrictions for tapirs may not be enough
2014-09-15
A published study indicates that lowland tapir populations may continue to drop in French Guiana, despite recent restrictions on hunting. Researchers from the Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage in French Guiana and San Diego Zoo Global reviewed data retrieved from camera traps in the Nouragues National Reserve over the last four years and compared this data to current harvest rates in the region.
"In 2011, restrictions were placed on hunting tapirs in French Guiana," said Matthias Tobler, a scientist with the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. ...
Northeastern University Researchers Develop Novel Method for Working with Nanotubes
2014-09-15
An interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Northeastern University has developed a novel method for controllably constructing precise inter-nanotube junctions and a variety of nanocarbon structures in carbon nanotube arrays. The method is facile and easily scalable, which will allow the researchers to tailor the physical properties of nanotube networks for use in applications ranging from electronic devices to CNT-reinforced composite materials found in everything from cars to sports equipment.
Their findings were published in the journal Nature Communications in ...
iPhone Chemistry: Elements of a smartphone
2014-09-15
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15, 2014 — By now, we've got all the details about Apple's latest iPhone, and the lines are probably forming somewhere for the Sept. 19 launch. But what do you really know about the guts of the iPhone 6, or any smartphone for that matter? Reactions teamed up once again with the Compound Interest blog to reveal the chemical elements found inside your smartphone. Learn all about it at http://youtu.be/66SGcBAs04w.
INFORMATION:
Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos. ...
Oregon researchers urge psychologists to see institutional betrayal
2014-09-15
EUGENE, Ore. -- Clinical psychologists are being urged by two University of Oregon researchers to recognize the experiences of institutional betrayal so they can better treat their patients and respond in ways that help avoid or repair damaged trust when it occurs in their own institutions.
The call to action for clinicians as well as researchers appears in a paper in the September issue of the American Psychologist, the leading journal of the American Psychological Association.
In their paper, UO doctoral student Carly P. Smith and psychology professor Jennifer J. ...
When rulers can't understand the ruled
2014-09-15
Johns Hopkins University political scientists wanted to know if America's unelected officials have enough in common with the people they govern to understand them.
The answer: Not really.
Surveying 850 people who either work in the federal government or directly with it, researchers found that the inside-the-Beltway crowd has very little in common with America at large. Washington insiders are more likely to be white. They are more educated. Their salaries are higher, they vote more often and they have more faith in the fairness of elections. They are probably Democrat ...
Early Earth less hellish than previously thought
2014-09-15
Conditions on Earth for the first 500 million years after it formed may have been surprisingly similar to the present day, complete with oceans, continents and active crustal plates.
This alternate view of Earth's first geologic eon, called the Hadean, has gained substantial new support from the first detailed comparison of zircon crystals that formed more than 4 billion years ago with those formed contemporaneously in Iceland, which has been proposed as a possible geological analog for early Earth.
The study was conducted by a team of geologists directed by Calvin ...
Decoding virus-host interactions in the oxygen-starved ocean
2014-09-15
For multicellular life—plants and animals—to thrive in the oceans, there must be enough dissolved oxygen in the water. In certain coastal areas, extreme oxygen-starvation produces "dead zones" that decimate marine fisheries and destroy food web structure. As dissolved oxygen levels decline, energy is increasingly diverted away from multicellular life into microbial community metabolism resulting in impacts on the ecology and biogeochemistry of the ocean.
Over the past 50 years, oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) have expanded due to climate change and increased waste run-off ...
Report urges individualized, cholesterol-targeted approach to heart disease and stroke
2014-09-15
PORTLAND, Ore. – A recent guideline for using statins to reduce atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease has wavered too far from the simple cholesterol goals that have saved thousands of lives in the past decade, and doesn't adequately treat patients as individuals, experts said today in a national report.
An expert panel coordinated by the National Lipid Association has created its own outline for how to best treat people at risk for cardiovascular disease, which they say focuses on reducing cholesterol to an appropriate level, and puts less emphasis on whether or not ...
Long-term effects of childhood asthma influenced by socioeconomic status
2014-09-15
COLUMBIA, Mo. – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 6 percent of children younger than five have been diagnosed with asthma, the fastest-growing and most common chronic illness affecting children in the United States. Studies have shown that asthma is associated with attention and behavioral issues in children, yet little existing research examines how socioeconomic status may influence the ultimate effects of these difficulties. Now, an MU researcher has found that the overall outcomes for children with asthma are influenced ...
Protein secrets of Ebola virus
2014-09-15
The current Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, which has claimed more than 2000 lives, has highlighted the need for a deeper understanding of the molecular biology of the virus that could be critical in the development of vaccines or antiviral drugs to treat or prevent Ebola hemorrhagic fever. Now, a team at the University of Virginia (UVA), USA – under the leadership of Dr Dan Engel, a virologist, and Dr Zygmunt Derewenda, a structural biologist – has obtained the crystal structure of a key protein involved in Ebola virus replication, the C-terminal domain of the Zaire ...