Dating and Sexual Violence in Chilean Youth: Lessons from a 2005 Survey of University Students

Jocelyn Lehrer, University of California, San Francisco
Evelyn L. Lehrer, University of Illinois at Chicago
Mary P. Koss, University of Arizona

Dating violence and sexual violence in young adults have received little attention in Chile, and at present there are no systematized programs in colleges in the country to prevent or respond to these forms of violence. The 2005 Survey of Student Well-Being, addressed to students enrolled in General Education courses at a public university in Santiago, was stimulated by a desire to mobilize public health research and practice in Chile and other Latin-American countries, similar to that which helped transform the U.S. landscape in the 1980s (Makepeace 1981; Koss & Oros 1982). This paper discusses lessons learned from several analyses of these data. It describes the main findings and their implications, from public health and economic perspectives, with emphasis on violence reported by the female students. It also notes gaps in the literature on dating and sexual violence identified over the course of this project, and directions for further research.