The Role of University Health Centers in Intervention and Prevention of Campus Sexual Assault

Laura Buchholz

JAMA. 2015;314(5):438-440. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.8213.

This Medical News and Perspectives piece discusses the role of campus health services in sexual assault prevention and intervention initiatives, highlighting the challenges college communities face in mitigating assault.

In the past year, several reports of campus sexual assault have caught the attention of the media, renewing national conversations on the issue. In 2014, Rolling Stone retracted a story called “A Rape on Campus,” which described a freshman’s account of being gang-raped by 7 men at a fraternity party at the University of Virginia . At Columbia University, a student carried a mattress as an art thesis and a protest against the way the school handled her report of sexual assault . In 2015, a former Florida State University student filed a lawsuit against the school for its handling of her sexual assault report and another against the football player she said was responsible for the 2012 assault . (http://rol.st/1HLGaiJ; http://nyti.ms/1He8jxo;http://huff.to/1JQ0m5v).