Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Young adult women naturalistically engage in sexual assault protective behavioral strategies (SA-PBS) in an effort to reduce their risk of sexual assault. Despite well-documented sociocontextual risks for sexual assault, it remains largely unknown whether and how social contexts influence SA-PBS use. The present study characterized relations of women's alcohol use and interpersonal contexts with SA-PBS engagement across social events, framed according to Routine Activity Theory. METHOD: Young adult women from a community sample (N = 174) reported their drinking and social events across 27 daily assessments spanning one year. Multilevel latent class analyses examined variability in SA-PBS, and multinomial regression tested associations of contextual risks with SA-PBS engagement. RESULTS: Results supported three distinct classes of social events characterized by SA-PBS engagement: (1) No or Minimal Use of SA-PBS ("No Use," 26%), (2) No Perceived Reason or Opportunity to Use SA-PBS ("No Reason or Opportunity," 44%), and (3) Any Use of SA-PBS ("Any Use," 30%). Presence of likely offenders (odds ratio [OR] = 4.77, p = .004), absence of capable guardianship (OR = 5.91, p < .001), and greater other's substance intoxication (OR = 1.46, p = .01), as theorized by Routine Activity Theory, increased odds of membership in the "Any Use" relative to "No Use" class. Women's alcohol consumption was not associated with class membership. CONCLUSIONS: Women's perceptions of risk in the social environment relate to their likelihood of engaging in SA-PBS. Findings represent an important step toward understanding the social context's role in sexual assault risk and protection.