title: A global perspective on child sexual abuse: meta-analysis of prevalence around the world.
abstract: Our comprehensive meta-analysis combined prevalence figures of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) reported in 217 publications published between 1980 and 2008, including 331 independent samples with a total of 9,911,748 participants. The overall estimated CSA prevalence was 127/1000 in self-report studies and 4/1000 in informant studies. Self-reported CSA was more common among female (180/1000) than among male participants (76/1000). Lowest rates for both girls (113/1000) and boys (41/1000) were found in Asia, and highest rates were found for girls in Australia (215/1000) and for boys in Africa (193/1000). The results of our meta-analysis confirm that CSA is a global problem of considerable extent, but also show that methodological issues drastically influence the self-reported prevalence of CSA.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marije
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stoltenborgh
authors.forename: Marinus H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: van Ijzendoorn
authors.forename: Eveline M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Euser
authors.forename: Marian J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Bakermans-Kranenburg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D015982:Bias; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003625:Data Collection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D018401:Sample Size; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012737:Sex Factors