Child Abuse as a Public Health Issue, with Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau
Instead of a public health issue, child sexual abuse is still seen by many as a criminal justice problem, leading to a lack of government support for research into preventing abuse.
- Notes
- Transcript
Research indicates that 15-20 percent of girls and 5-10 percent of boys in the United States are affected by child sexual abuse. Those are numbers that should make everyone sit up and take notice, and yet one of the biggest funding gaps we see in our field is the lack of government support for research on how to prevent this abuse. Instead of a public health issue, child sexual abuse is still seen by many as a criminal justice problem. We talked to Dr. Letourneau about what policies she sees as fundamentally flawed, where the bright spots are, and why prevention should be a federal priority.
Links:
Elizabeth Letourneau, Ph.D., director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse
Transcript to come.