JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Sexual violence (SV; any sexual activity where consent is not obtained or freely given) and dating violence (DV; abuse or aggression that occurs in a romantic relationship among youth) are prevalent and interrelated public health concerns among youth in the United States. Despite the urgency of this public health concern, there is a dearth of comprehensive SV/DV prevention approaches that aim to intervene across multiple levels of the social ecology (i.e., at the individual, interpersonal, community, and societal level) to support population-level reductions in SV/DV. In response to this need, the field of violence prevention has called for the development and evaluation of community-level interventions to prevent SV/DV. Close to Home (C2H) is a community-driven, community mobilization primary prevention program that aims to have community-level effects on reducing SV/DV, as well as improving community connection and social norms related to SV/DV, yet has never been rigorously evaluated.

Objective:

This research study aims to rigorously evaluate the C2H model at three levels of the social ecology (individual, interpersonal, and community) in 22 diverse communities in California.

Methods:

This protocol outlines a quasi-experimental cluster-matched control trial to evaluate the 24-month effects of C2H on SV/DV among youth ages 14-24 years. The study utilizes a social network sampling design to assess diffusion of intervention effects across youth and their social networks, as well as community-wide school-based data from the California Healthy Kids Survey to provide critical evidence on the effectiveness of community mobilization as a viable community-level approach for SV/DV prevention. Primary outcomes include SV/DV perpetration and victimization 12-month incidence for youth ages 14-24, including sexual assault, in-person and online sexual harassment, and dating violence. Secondary outcomes include protective social norms rejecting SV/DV and community connection. Eleven pre-selected implementation sites from across California participated in the evaluation and were matched with eleven control program sites based on key demographics and county-level factors related to sexual violence.

Results:

Baseline survey data were collected on a rolling basis between October 2021 and June 2023 from 953 participants of the social network sample. As of July 2025, follow-up data at 24-months is being collected and is planned to be completed by September 2025.

Conclusions:

This study is among the first to rigorously evaluate a community mobilization approach to SV/DV prevention in the United States. Evidence from this evaluation will support community-level approaches to address the high prevalence of SV/DV in youth populations in the United States and is in response to the field’s call for further investigation of prevention strategies that address prevention at the outer levels of the social ecological model (i.e., community and societal-level prevention). Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT05206994; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05206994