Monitoring Sexual Violence Trends in Emergency Department Visits Using Syndromic Data From the National Syndromic...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Emergency Medicine

Background:

• Sexual violence (SV) is a significant public health issue with substantial healthcare utilization.
• Understanding temporal trends in SV-related emergency department (ED) visits is crucial for targeted prevention strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze national trends in sexual violence (SV) emergency department (ED) visits in the United States between January 2017 and December 2019.
• To identify demographic variations and seasonal patterns in SV-related ED visits.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Syndromic Surveillance Program data.
• Analyzed monthly SV rates per 100,000 ED visits, stratified by sex and age groups.
• Employed time-series analysis to identify trends and seasonality.

Main Results:

• A total of 196,948 SV-related ED visits were recorded from January 2017 to December 2019.
• Females exhibited higher SV-related ED visit rates than males.
• Females aged 50-59 years showed the largest increase (57.33%) in SV-related ED visits. Positive trends were observed across all strata, with 10 statistically significant increases.
• Seasonal patterns indicated spikes during warmer months and declines during colder months, especially in younger age groups (0-9 and 10-19 years).

Conclusions:

• Significant increases in SV-related ED visits occurred between 2017 and 2019.
• Syndromic surveillance provides near-real-time data for monitoring SV trends.
• These findings can inform and enhance SV prevention initiatives.