Tuesday, May 13, 2025
5/13/2025
Massachusetts RPE (Rape Prevention and Education) - The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) will use a public health approach to improve the prevention of sexual violence through both state and local-level strategies using the best available evidence. MDPH will work with key stakeholders to improve the state public health approach to sexual violence prevention by: a) continuing to monitor and developing new surveillance measures regarding sexual violence victimization and perpetration prevalence; b) using guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as other research, to identify and track risk and protective factors for sexual violence at the state and local level; c) using the best-available evidence to identify populations with highest prevalence, lowest access to services, and worst outcomes from sexual and domestic violence, MPDH will fund local sexual violence prevention sub-recipients to partner with community agencies that serve such populations to choose community and societal-level prevention strategies and adapt them to those populations; d) coordinating with local sexual violence prevention sub-recipients and their partner community-based agencies to identify strengths and challenges of particular strategies, then communicating with other states using similar strategies and/or focusing on similar communities to share lessons learned in-state, out-of-state, and with the CDC. Strategies will be chosen with state and local populations experiencing health disparities in mind that may present challenges to implementation and/or serve as opportunities to expand knowledge of strategy implementation with underserved populations. Similarly, implementing strategies at the community and/or societal level and evaluating process and outcome measures will prove challenging and partnering with other states and the CDC on identifying sexual violence indicators reflecting these strategies will be critical. MDPH will develop and revise Work Plans, State Action Plans, and Evaluation Plans with the local sub-recipients and their community partners and other stakeholders through a collaborative State sexual violence Prevention Team (SPT) to ensure coordination and meet desired outcomes of the CDC Notice of Funding Opportunity. MA will work with the CDC to modify these documents as needed during the first year of the five-year grant period. Reporting annually on implementation and tracking of process and outcome measures at the state, local, and State Prevention Team levels will be done in close collaboration with the CDC.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).