Project Summary
The goal of this study is to understand the timing and patterns of treatment seeking after rape.
Rape survivors have high, varied, and long-term health needs after rape, and research is
contradictory as to when and what kind of healthcare services rape survivors may over- or
under-utilize. Screening programs are often implemented with the intent of improving access to
care or directed referrals to care. Yet, outside of the Veterans Health Administration, screening
programs have little evidence of effectiveness. By recruiting a large, diverse sample of mostly
marginalized, mostly women rape survivors and following them for years, we will be able to
observe naturalistic screening practices and treatment seeking across a variety of treatment
needs and contexts. Thus, the data collected in this study will be a new foundation for
understanding the features of screening programs and nature of treatment-seeking after rape.