This literature review is intended to contribute to efforts to raise awareness and
conversations around sexual violence. It is focused on men’s sexual violence against
adolescent and adult women. We begin our review by briefly considering the definition of sexual violence, its
prevalence, and its impact.
In Section 2, following the lead of public health theorists, we use an ecological
framework to discuss factors which contribute to – or are protective of – sexual
violence. That is, we adopt a multi‐level approach, considering risk factors at societal,
community, relationship and individual levels. Although we look at each of these levels
in turn, as will become evident, it is also important to consider the interactions
between levels.
In Section 3, we review evaluations of various attempts to prevent sexual violence.
Mostly, these evaluations have focused on individual level prevention efforts:
prevention at community and societal levels seem to have received little attention
from evaluators. Nevertheless, there are some useful lessons to be gained from the
evaluation literature.
In section 4, we attempt to integrate the material considered in sections 2 and 3 into a
framework proposed by the (US) National Sexual Violence Resource Center (Davis,
Parks, & Cohen, 2006). Consistent with a public health approach, the Spectrum of
Prevention is a multi‐level model.
