Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Sexual Assault: Women's Voices on the Health Impacts of Not Being
Believed by Police
Version: 
1 
Date: 
18 Feb 2021
Reviewer's report:
The authors present qualitative data on the interactions between survivors of
sexual assault and police. This is an important topic that does warrant additional
attention in the literature. I have some comments below that need to be
addressed prior to publication:
Background
* Given the sample is half indigenous/First Nations I think that it would greatly
benefit the manuscript to address the importance of indigeneity in relation to
sexual violence and police interaction. I think presenting this literature is
important to the included sample and would make the manuscript more
compelling.
* As someone who is not Canadian, it is interesting to hear of the phenomenon
of "unfounded" case documentation. I appreciate that the authors tried to lay out
the problematic side of this documentation; however, it remains unclear to me as
a reader when this documentation is appropriate. The phrasing on page 3 line 90
stating "the code 'unfounded' is indicative…" seems to imply that it is never
appropriate. Is that indeed the intent of the authors? Later the authors use the
term "inappropriate" to describe use of the "unfounded" designation which seems
to imply there are appropriate cases. I believe some clarification would benefit
the readership outside of Canada.
* The statement on page 4 line 98 "The experience… has not been explored from
women's first-hand accounts" can't be correct. A cursory search provides
qualitative accounts of police interactions that include disbelief. Does this
statement mean to indicate that no systematic collection of perspectives from
women whose cases were designated as "unfounded" has occurred? This may be
accurate, though I am less familiar with the Canadian literature. I think that the
authors may need to frame their justification for this work in a different way
other than this claim.
Methods
* Given that the sample is half indigenous, how did participants assess
differences across race? 
* It is unclear, but it seems that this analysis may have come from a larger parent
study that was not focused on police interactions or perhaps not focused
exclusively on disbelief by police. Is this the case? It might make more sense to
make it more explicit. Page 8 line 189-190 raised this question.
Results 
* It is typical to include either a generated name or participant ID of some kind
to allow readers to see that the quotes are coming from various participants. I
would recommend adding some indicator of this sort to the quotes.
* I would check style with the journal to see if longer quotes should be italicized.
* On page 10 line 246: the term revictimization is unclear. I tend to think of this
construct as a second or cumulative experience of sexual violence at different
time points or by different perpetrators. Do the authors mean rather
retraumatization? Given the current phrasing I was left wondering if the police
officers were sexually assaulting some participants (as this is indeed the case in
some populations and contexts). 
* Under the section on Cumulative Effect, did the authors asses the symptoms of
the mental health conditions listed in the first paragraph, or were these based on
self-report in the qualitative interviews? This is unclear in the current phrasing.
* It would benefit the manuscript to discuss differences and/or similarities
between the white and indigenous samples include in this manuscript. Did
indigeneity come up in discussion of police interactions? Were there certain
patterns among the indigenous sample that contrasted with the white sample? If
the authors systematically examined the possibility of difference by race, but did
not find a difference this should also be noted.
Discussion
* How does this analysis relate to the literature on indigenous women, SA and
police interactions? 
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