Mary Brannock, alumna of the community health doctoral program in the East Tennessee State University College of Public Health, has authored an article in the Journal of Emergency Nursing. The article is titled, “Availability of Certified Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners in Appalachian States.”
Olivia Sullivan, current doctoral student, and Kate Beatty, Associate Professor in the college’s Department of Health Services Administration and Policy, are co-authors.
Sexual assault nurse examiners play crucial roles in caring for sexual assault survivors. Previous research indicates that nurses may face barriers to sexual assault nurse examiner certification in rural areas, potentially indicating a need for greater support for sexual assault nurse examiners; however, it is not clear whether sexual assault nurse examiner availability differs throughout the 13 states that comprise the Appalachian region of the United States. Therefore, this cross-sectional analysis identified sexual assault nurse examiner availability in 13 states and determined differences in availability by both county-level Appalachian status and county-level rurality status.
To create the study, the authors downloaded data from two public sexual assault nurse examiner registries for the included 13 states. They found state-level sexual assault nurse examiner availability ranged from 0.34 to 0.86 sexual assault nurse examiners per 100,000 residents. Sexual assault nurse examiner availability in these 13 states did not differ by Appalachian status. However, rural areas had significantly lower sexual assault nurse examiner availability than urban areas in these 13 states.
These data support previous literature on the need for stronger sexual assault nurse examiner programs in rural areas in the United States. Future research should take sexual assault prevalence into account to determine whether local sexual assault nurse examiner access needs, as well as appropriate support for sexual assault nurse examiners, are being met throughout Appalachian states.