By Maddy LaCure, Policy Advocate for Prevention and Education
MCASA is excited to share that we are the recipient of a new one year Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Grant. This is a brand new funding opportunity for sexual assault coalitions across the country to assess our primary prevention work with a focus on health equity. We are especially grateful to the work of our partner, the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, for their advocacy on this new funding source.
CDC defines health equity as ‘the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health. Achieving this requires focused and ongoing societal efforts to address historical and contemporary injustices; overcome economic, social, and other obstacles to health and healthcare; and eliminate preventable health disparities.’ Working to address health equity moves the focus of our work upstream, to target root causes of violence, inequalities, and inequities.
Because sexual violence is a significant public health problem, it shares risk and protective factors with other public health issues. Working to improve social determinants of health in a community and striving for health equity will also prevent sexual assault. Though coalitions, including MCASA, have worked to incorporate health equity, prevention programs for underserved populations, and other society and community level prevention efforts over the last few years, this funding provided the opportunity to thoroughly assess MCASA’s capacity to do this work and provide recommendations for moving forward with prevention programming that impacts health equity.
We are collaborating with the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) Rape and Sexual Assault Prevention Program (RSAPP) to utilize the results of their three-phase Needs Assessment, combining available data with interviews from sexual violence service providers and historically underserved populations, to identify populations of focus for future prevention efforts. We are also seeking feedback from local Rape Crisis Centers, culturally-specific service providers, and community organizations to determine priorities for MCASA’s statewide efforts and learn how we can best support local programs doing prevention work in their communities every day.
We are appreciative of this focus on the need for increased primary prevention efforts that target systemic oppression and inequities from the CDC and our federal partners. We look forward to a robust learning process as we assess our existing work and determine next steps for health equity focused prevention strategies. If you are interested in learning more about incorporating health equity into your sexual violence prevention work, please contact MCASA’s prevention team to discuss further.
Additional resources created and distributed by our national partners are also available:
Prevent Connect: Health Equity in Practice 5-Part Webconference Series
NSVRC: A Health Equity Approach to Preventing Sexual Violence
