A Novel Model for Generating Creative, Community-Responsive Interventions to Reduce Gender-Based Violence on College Campuses

Currently, the most successful prevention interventions against sexual violence (SV) on United States college campuses target modifications at the individual and interpersonal levels. Community-level interventions have been under-developed for college campuses. To address this gap, we employ a citizen science model for understanding campus community factors affecting SV risk. The model, called Our Voice, starts by engaging groups of college students to collect data in their own communities, identifying factors they view as increasing the risk of SV. In facilitated meetings, participants then review and analyze their collective data and use it to generate actionable community-level solutions and advocate for them with local decision-makers. We share findings from a first-generation study of the Our Voice model applied to SV prevention on one college campus, and include recommendations for further research.