Stopping Child Sexual Abuse Requires a Shift in Funding Priorities

After four years and more than 100 conversations with policymakers about the need to increase federal funding for child sexual abuse prevention research, Elizabeth Letourneau knows what to expect.

First, the policymaker agrees that preventing child sexual abuse from ever occurring makes sense. Then, when talk turns to funding, the conversation usually ends with talk of federal deficits and budget caps and a “Sorry, we can’t put much money into new prevention efforts.”

“Nobody pushes back against the need to prevent child sexual abuse,” says Letourneau, PhD, director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse. “But the pushback I was getting about not having funding for prevention research struck me as a belief we could overcome.”

Read full article in the Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health Magazin