Teen Newsletter: March 2021 – Teen Dating Violence

Teen dating violence (TDV) includes four types of behavior:

1. Physical violence is when a person hurts or tries to hurt a partner by hitting, kicking, or using another type of physical force.
2. Sexual violence is forcing or attempting to force a partner to take part in a sex act, sexual touching, or a non-physical sexual event (e.g., sexting) when the partner does not or cannot consent.
3. Psychological aggression is the use of verbal and non-verbal communication with the intent to harm another person mentally or emotionally and/or exert control over another person.
4. Stalking is a pattern of repeated, unwanted attention and contact by a partner that causes fear or concern for one’s own safety or the safety of someone close to the victim.

Teen dating violence (TDV), also referred to as “dating violence,” can take place in person or electronically, such as repeated texting or posting sexual pictures of a partner online without consent. Unhealthy relationships can start early and last a lifetime. Teens often think some behaviors, like teasing and name-calling, are a “normal” part of a relationship, but these behaviors can become abusive and develop into serious forms of violence. However, many teens do not report unhealthy behaviors because they are afraid to tell family and friends.

How Big Is The Problem?

Teen dating violence is common. It affects millions of teens in the U.S. each year. You learned about CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) in the September 2020 Teen Newsletter. Data from YRBS and the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey indicate that:

• Nearly 1 in 11 female and approximately 1 in 15 male high school students report having experienced physical dating violence in the last year.
• About 1 in 9 female and 1 in 36 male high school students report having experienced sexual dating violence in the last year.
• 26% of women and 15% of men who were victims of contact sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime first experienced these or other forms of violence by that partner before age 18.

The burden of TDV is not shared equally across all groups — sexual minority groups are disproportionately affected by all forms of violence, and some racial/ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by many types of violence.

What Are the Consequences?

Unhealthy, abusive, or violent relationships can have severe consequences and short-and long-term negative effects on a developing teen. For example, youth who are victims of TDV are more likely to:

• Experience symptoms of depression and anxiety
• Engage in unhealthy behaviors, like using tobacco, drugs, and alcohol
• Exhibit antisocial behaviors, like lying, theft, bullying, or hitting
• Think about suicide

Violence in an adolescent relationship sets the stage for problems in future relationships, including intimate partner violence and sexual violence perpetration and/or victimization throughout life. For example, youth who are victims of dating violence in high school are at higher risk for victimization during college.

How Can We Stop Teen Dating Violence Before It Starts?

Supporting the development of healthy, respectful, and nonviolent relationships has the potential to reduce the occurrence of TDV and prevent its harmful and long-lasting effects on individuals, their families, and the communities where they live. During the pre-teen and teen years, it is critical for youth to begin learning the skills needed to create and maintain healthy relationships. These skills include things like how to manage feelings and how to communicate in a healthy way.

The video above, Moving Forward, humanizes both types of factors by using actors on a stage to show how people can move up or get held back in life, depending on positive or negative impacts. It will ultimately show how increasing what protects people from violence and reducing what puts people at risk for it benefits everyone.

Risk factors for dating violence include individual, peer, partner, parent, and neighborhood influences. Preventing dating violence requires a comprehensive community-driven strategy to stop violence before it starts.

3. Intervention Evaluation (What works?)
Once we’ve identified the risk factors related to the problem, we ask, “What intervention works to address the problem?” We look at what has worked in the past in addressing this same problem and if a proposed intervention makes sense with our affected population.

CDC uses a four-level social-ecological model to better understand violence and the effect of potential prevention strategies. This model considers the complex interplay between individual, relationship, community, and societal factors. It allows us to understand the range of factors that put people at risk for violence or protect them from experiencing or perpetrating violence. The overlapping rings in the model illustrate how factors at one level influence factors at another level. Besides helping to clarify these factors, the model also suggests that in order to prevent violence, it is necessary to act across multiple levels of the model at the same time. This approach is more likely to sustain prevention efforts over time and achieve population-level impact.

A technical package is a compilation of a core set of strategies to achieve and sustain substantial reductions in a specific risk factor or outcome. Technical packages help communities and states prioritize prevention activities based on the best available evidence. CDC developed a technical package, Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical Package of Programs, Policies, and Practices that describes strategies and approaches that are based on the best available evidence for preventing intimate partner violence (IPV), including TDV. The package includes multiple strategies that can be used in combination to stop IPV and TDV before it starts.

4. Implementation (How did we do it?)
In the last step, we ask, “How can we implement the intervention? Given the resources we have and what we know about the affected population, will this work?”

In response to growing concern from the public and policymakers about the risks of teen dating violence, between 2009 and 2011, CDC developed Dating Matters^®: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships. Dating Matters is a comprehensive adolescent dating violence prevention model. It includes multiple integrated prevention strategies that address risk factors for youths and their families, schools, and neighborhoods with demonstrated effects on adolescent dating violence, bullying, and peer violence in middle school. CDC recognized that public health organizations, like local health departments, offer unique resources for delivering comprehensive, community-level prevention strategies due to their access to multiple sectors and populations.

Is Dating Matters Effective?

To find out if Dating Matters helps prevent teen dating violence, CDC compared youth who participated in Dating Matters to those who participated in another evidence-based prevention program (Safe Dates). CDC found that during middle school, students in schools offering Dating Matters reported lower levels of teen dating violence perpetration and victimization and lower use of negative conflict resolution strategies than students in comparison schools. Teen dating violence outcomes were examined only for those who reported dating before or during middle school. Middle school youth who participated in Dating Matters also reported lower levels of:

• Bullying perpetration
• Cyber-bullying perpetration and victimization (females only)
• Physical violence perpetration
• Weapon carrying
• Alcohol and substance use
• Delinquency
• Sexual violence perpetration and sexual violence victimization (females only), and
• Sexual harassment within and outside of dating relationships

As part of a five-year demonstration project, CDC funded four local health departments in communities across the country to implement Dating Matters. These local health departments and their partners brought Dating Matters to 46 middle schools with more than 36,000 youth, nearly 1,000 parents, and more than 300 educators. You can learn more about each of the communities and their successes with Dating Matters by visiting Dating Matters Success Stories.

For more information about implementing Dating Matters, visit:

• Dating Matters Toolkit
• Dating Matters Brochure

As you can see, using The Public Health Approach helps public health professionals identify a problem, find out what is causing it, and determine what solutions/interventions work. Learn more about the Public Health Approach to Violence Prevention.