Sexual Assault Among Latinas (SALAS) Study

The Sexual Assault among Latinas (SALAS) Study adds to the literature by using a national sample of Latino women to determine the extent of interpersonal victimization alone and the overlap among different forms of victimization. Respondents were asked about lifetime victimization, help-seeking efforts, acculturation, religiosity, gender role ideology, trauma symptoms, and posttraumatic symptoms. The lifetime rate of interpersonal victimization ranged from 22.2% for physical violence to 17.2% for sexual violence. Most importantly, 63.1% of victimized women experienced more than one victimization event. The research also shows that victimized women were unlikely to seek out formal help through the courts or police, with only 32.5% of women resorting to formal services. Most often, women sought informal help, with 68.9% of them resorting to friends or family for assistance.