Assessment of the incidence of rape--North Carolina, 1989-1993.
Rape has a substantial impact on the health of victims, including a broad spectrum of physical, psychologic, and social sequelae (1-3). The development of appropriate and effective rape-prevention programs is assisted by consistent collection of information about and by accurate estimation of the incidence of rape. In North Carolina, as in many other states, the only source of statewide and county-specific population-based data on rape incidence is the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR), coordinated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); however, these data may underestimate the actual incidence of rape (4,5) because they include only assaults that have been reported to police and that conform to the UCR definition of forcible rape. To assess the usefulness of rape crisis centers (RCCs) as an additional potential source of data for determining the incidence of rape, in 1994 the Injury Control Section, North Carolina Department of Environment, Health, and Natural Resources (NC-DEHNR), surveyed RCCs in North Carolina, then compared estimates of the annual incidence based on RCC and UCR data for selected counties during 1989-1993. This report summarizes the results of the survey and comparative analysis.
D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D009657:North Carolina / Q000453:epidemiology; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011902:Rape / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*