# The Public Will Campaign: Shifting Social Norms to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse

> **NIH ALLCDC U01** · MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $399,322

## Abstract

This is a community-partnered study to rigorously evaluate the Public Will Campaign (PWC),
which aims to prevent child sexual abuse (CSA) through the identification and correction of
misperceived social norms relative to CSA prevention. The short-term goals of the PWC are to
build strong communities, reduce CSA perpetration, and to improve attitudes, social norms, and
behaviors relative to CSA. PWC's long-term goals are to end CSA for future generations. The
PWC employs a systems change model which mobilizes individual behaviors, social norms, and
systemic structures to prevent CSA. To that end, PWC pairs grassroots outreach methods with
media tools to build connection and sustained mobilization around a shared set of values.
Specifically, PWC has developed a multi-phase campaign strategy to activate communities to
prevent CSA. The first phase focuses on community building as a foundation for bystander
intervention and broader cultural change; citizens must believe that others “have their backs”
before feeling comfortable engaging in community-level prevention interventions. During this
phase, the PWC will hold community mobilization events and launch a multimedia campaign,
offering experiential opportunities to build social capital and gradually target CSA specifically.
Next, PWC will engage communities via open space technology to assess collective efficacy
and explicate county-specific misperceptions of social norms relative to CSA prevention. Finally,
communities will design their own county-specific campaigns to correct misperceptions of social
norms about CSA prevention and promote children's rights and safety. To evaluate the
effectiveness of PWC in shifting study outcomes, we will collect multiple forms of data. We will
use state-level secondary data sources to monitor county-level change over time in CSA
perpetration. We will conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial in six counties in Northern
Michigan with repeated intercept surveys to assess change over time in attitudes, social norms,
and behaviors. We will capture real-time data from multimedia platforms documenting
engagement and dosage with the PWC. Finally, using open space technology, we will conduct
focus groups in participating communities to make meaning of quantitative data, explicate social
norms specific to each county, and assess readiness for CSA prevention. This community-
partnered study – both the program and evaluation – will yield collective efficacy to sustain the
movement to end CSA. This study is innovative as it focuses on CSA prevention via shaping
outer layers of the social ecology and leverages social norms as a CSA prevention strategy,
which will accelerate community-level change.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10402990
- **Project number:** 1U01CE003395-01
- **Recipient organization:** MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Heather L McCauley
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** ALLCDC
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $399,322
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-30 → 2025-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10402990

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10402990, The Public Will Campaign: Shifting Social Norms to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse (1U01CE003395-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10402990. Licensed CC0.

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