Preventing the sexual assault of older women

What is this survey about?
This survey is part of a national, three year project which is exploring the sexual assault of older women through the perspectives of older women, their families and service providers. The project’s broad aim is to strengthen the community’s ability to prevent the sexual assault of older women that occurs in private homes, aged care settings and the wider community. By older women, we mean women over 65 years of age. Older women, like girls or women of all ages, can be sexually assaulted. Offenders may be husbands or partners, other people known to a woman such as carers or neighbours, or they may be strangers. They can be male or female. By sexual assault we mean any kind of unwanted sexual behaviour or activity that makes a woman feel uncomfortable, frightened or threatened. It includes unwanted sexual behaviors such as touching, fondling, fingering or masturbation, as well as oral, anal or vaginal sex.

Why is this project important?
Strategies for the primary prevention of the sexual assault of girls and women are well established in Australia. Primary prevention involves reviewing evidence on the context of sexual assault in order to understand attitudes and behaviours that can be changed to prevent sexual assault from occurring. Despite recognition of the importance of primary prevention, there are currently no primary prevention strategies that specifically address the sexual assault of older women. This is partly due to the fact that there is no evidence (on public record) of the context of the sexual assault of older women. Without this evidence it is difficult to accurately identify attitudes and behaviours that could be changed to reduce the vulnerabilty of older women to sexual assault.

What will happen with the information I provide?
Your responses to this survey will be analyzed by the research team and included in report alongside information from interviews. Surveys can be posted to the research team up until January 2014.

Privacy and confidentiality
There are no questions on the open survey that reveal your identity. As you complete the survey you can check to make sure you have not included any identifying information. The survey responses will be analysed by the researchers and included in a project report.

What would I need to do?
You are invited to complete this survey to share your perspectives on the sexual assault of older women and how this can be prevented. The survey includes 4 open questions about the sexual assault of older women and 5 basic questions about you.