Interventions to prevent sexual harassment in universities: an umbrella review of systematic reviews.

title: "Preventing Sexual Harassment in Universities: What an Umbrella Review Tells Us"

description: "An umbrella review of 17 systematic reviews finds bystander programs improve knowledge and attitudes, but the evidence base for sexual harassment prevention specifically is weak."

date: 2025

category: "Research Update"

evidenceTier: "C"

studyType: "Umbrella review of systematic reviews"

TL;DR: Bystander intervention programs consistently improve knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy in university settings, but their effect on actual behavior is limited, and the methodological quality of the reviews behind these conclusions is rated "critically low."

What the Study Found

Sexual harassment (SH) on university campuses is a recognized problem, yet the research guiding how to prevent it is thinner than many people assume. This umbrella review, conducted as part of the Uni4Equity project, set out to map the existing literature on SH prevention in universities, including programs that address SH as one form of broader gender-based violence (GBV). The authors searched four databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and PsycINFO) and identified 17 systematic reviews published in English between 2000 and 2024 that met their inclusion criteria, covering adult students and staff.

The first and most important finding concerns the evidence itself. When the authors assessed the methodological quality of the included reviews using AMSTAR-2, all were rated "critically low." None of the 17 reviews focused specifically on sexual harassment. Instead, the evidence base was drawn from interventions targeting broader GBV, including sexual and relationship violence. This means conclusions about SH prevention are largely inferred from neighboring fields rather than tested directly, a limitation the authors state clearly.

Among the intervention types examined, bystander intervention programs produced the most consistent results. These programs, which train people to recognize and safely respond to harmful situations, improved knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy in the reviewed studies. However, the authors report that their impact on actual behavior change was limited. Knowing how to intervene and believing one can intervene does not reliably translate into more intervention in practice, a gap that matters for any program judged by real-world outcomes.

Results for other approaches were more mixed. Primary prevention programs addressing sexual and relationship violence showed heterogeneous outcomes, meaning some studies found benefits and others did not, without a clear pattern explaining the difference. Self-defense and risk reduction programs showed limited evidence of effectiveness. The review does not support strong conclusions in either direction for these approaches, and readers should treat them as open questions rather than settled findings. [E tier for the limited-effectiveness conclusion on self-defense and risk reduction, as reported]

A further gap concerns who is represented in the research. The authors found that social minorities, including LGBTQ+ populations, were notably underrepresented in the studies reviewed. Because prevalence, experience, and institutional response to harassment can differ across groups, this absence limits how far the existing findings can be generalized. The authors argue that future work needs to be inclusive and intersectional, attending to social, institutional, and interpersonal layers of gender relations.

What This Means for You

If you work in or manage a university setting, the review's central message is that individual-focused interventions are unlikely to be sufficient on their own. The authors call for comprehensive, campus-wide strategies that combine education, policy reform, awareness campaigns, and staff training. Bystander programs appear to be a useful component, but the evidence does not show they reliably change behavior by themselves.

For researchers and evaluators, the review points to a clear need for better methodology: pre-registered protocols, detailed search strategies, and studies that measure SH directly rather than relying on adjacent GBV outcomes. For anyone designing or choosing a program, the question to ask is not only whether participants report learning something, but whether the program was shown to change what people do.

This review does not evaluate any supplement or habit, and no product recommendations follow from its findings.

Study Details

Sources

1. Uni4Equity project (CERV-2022-DAPHNE Programme). Interventions to prevent sexual harassment in universities: an umbrella review of systematic reviews. *BMC Public Health*. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42894178/