Research funded by an IDS Seed Grant is seeking to better understand and reduce gaps in access to post-assault care for people with marginalized identities. The project was led by IDS Affiliates Kate Walsh and LB Klein and IDS Graduate Fellows Padideh Hassanpour and Taylan Stulting, along with Jeneile Luebke. It focuses on improving support services for survivors of sexual violence who are often overlooked—particularly survivors of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, those living in poverty, and people with multiple marginalized identities.
The study offers insights on how survivors navigate the complex landscape of post-assault care—and what keeps many from seeking help in the first place.
The researchers are using both qualitative and quantitative research methods to explore barriers and facilitators to care. Survivors have participated in in-depth interviews to share their experiences, while nurses and advocates have engaged in community advisory board meetings and interviews to provide insight into systemic challenges from the provider side.
The study also investigates how and where survivors access care—ranging from hospitals and clinics to LGBTQ+ centers, Indigenous health organizations, and grassroots advocacy spaces.
“Only a small fraction of survivors access services after sexual assault—just one in five receive medical care, and even fewer seek mental health or advocacy support,” says Hassanpour. “Our goal is to better understand factors that shape access, so researchers and providers can identify what needs to change to improve care and support for survivors.”
A key innovation of the project is the development of a new, culturally responsive measure designed to assess the barriers and supports that survivors face when seeking help. The team conducted a critical review of ten existing survey tools used in similar research and found shortcomings in the existing measures, prompting them to develop an improved measure.
The team’s new measure, the Barriers and Facilitators to Sexual Assault Services Scale, has been refined through cognitive interviews with survivors to ensure sensitivity to their lived experiences. Survivors have helped shape the questions, identifying gaps and recommending new items about community stigma, structural violence, and discrimination.
The research has real-world implications. By identifying how systems may fail survivors from minoritized groups, the study aims to inform public policy, nurse training standards (which vary widely by state), and the development of economic support programs for survivors.
The team launched the quantitative phase of the study in April 2025 to test the new measure’s reliability and validity. They are fielding a nationally representative survey using the refined measure in summer 2025. They are also working on multiple manuscripts and presentations, and their critical review has now been published in the journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse.
Looking ahead, Drs. Klein and Walsh are planning a large-scale, longitudinal follow-up study with support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Walsh says, “Understanding how survivors’ service-seeking experiences unfold over time can provide important information about how to restructure systems to provide flexible identity-congruent support that maximizes health and well-being.” This next step would allow researchers to track care access and outcomes over time across a representative population of survivors.