As with any health epidemic, public health officials seek to isolate, treat, intervene and finally create a system of prevention. Identification must occur before prevention. To this end, there is an immediate need for a sexual assault surveillance system. Presently, it appears that sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime. Data is difficult to collect due to the nature of sexual violence and therefore, innovative strategies must be utilized to create a reliable and valid surveillance system.
Surveillance is the next step in the collaborative effort to prevent and reduce sexual assault.
The case definitions for the Michigan Sexual Assault Surveillance System determine who is included in the system and how we define sexual assault. Frequently, juvenile victims of sexual assault are classified as abused children if the subject is under age twelve. For purposes of this surveillance system age will not be an exclusion criterion. While women are more likely to be victims of sexual assault than men, men are still victimized by sexual assaults and therefore we include them in the case definition. Many laws do not consider a nonconsensual sex act between married persons as a sexual assault.