Sexual Violence in the Media: An Exploration of Traditional Print Media Reporting in the United States, 2014-2017.

Sexual violence is prevalent and, for many victims, begins early in life (1). In the United States, one in five women and one in 38 men report completed or attempted rape victimization during their lifetime, with 43.2% of female and 51.3% of male victims reporting that their first rape victimization occurred before age 18 years (1). Media have been shown to act as a socializing agent for a range of health and social behaviors (2). Media portrayals might influence, reinforce, or modify how the public responds to incidents of sexual violence and their support for prevention efforts and media might construct a lens through which the public can understand who is affected by sexual violence, what forms it takes, why it happens, and who is responsible for addressing it (3). Media portrayals of sexual violence were assessed using a systematic random sample of newspaper articles from 48 of the top 50 distributed traditional print media outlets that were examined for sexual violence content and potential differences by geographic region and year of publication. Differences by year and region in type of sexual violence covered, media language used, and outcomes reported were identified, highlighting an opportunity for public health officials, practitioners, and journalists to frame sexual violence as a preventable public health issue and to incorporate best practices from CDC and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center's Sexual Violence Media Guide (4).

The Use of the Data-to-Action Framework in the Evaluation of CDC's DELTA FOCUS Program.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancements and Leadership Through Alliances, Focusing on Outcomes for Communities United with States (DELTA FOCUS) program is a 5-year cooperative agreement (2013-2018) funding 10 state domestic violence coalitions and local coordinated community response teams to engage in primary prevention of intimate partner violence. Grantees' prevention strategies were often developmental and emergent; therefore, CDC's approach to program oversight, administration, and support to grantees required a flexible approach. CDC staff adopted a Data-to-Action Framework for the DELTA FOCUS program evaluation that supported a culture of learning to meet dynamic and unexpected information needs. Briefly, a Data-to-Action Framework involves the collection and use of information in real time for program improvement. Utilizing this framework, the DELTA FOCUS data-to-action process yielded important insights into CDC's ongoing technical assistance, improved program accountability by providing useful materials, and information for internal agency leadership, and helped build a learning community among grantees. CDC and other funders, as decision makers, can promote program improvements that are data-informed by incorporating internal processes supportive of ongoing data collection and review.

CDC's DELTA FOCUS Program: Identifying Promising Primary Prevention Strategies for Intimate Partner Violence.

According to 2011 data, nearly one in four women and one in seven men in the United States experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner, creating a public health burden requiring population-level solutions. To prevent intimate partner violence (IPV) before it occurs, the CDC developed Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancements and Leadership Through Alliances, Focusing on Outcomes for Communities United with States to identify promising community- and societal-level prevention strategies to prevent IPV. The program funds 10 state domestic violence coalitions for 5 years to implement and evaluate programs and policies to prevent IPV by influencing the environments and conditions in which people live, work, and play. The program evaluation goals are to promote IPV prevention by identifying promising prevention strategies and describing those strategies using case studies, thereby creating a foundation for building practice-based evidence with a health equity approach.