Janice Du Mont

• Doctor of Education
• Senior Scientist at Women's College Hospital

We have undertaken a multi-phase, multi-method program of research to develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive hospital-based nurse examiner elder abuse intervention that addresses the complex functional, social, forensic, and medical needs of older women and men. In this study, we determined the importance of possible participating profess...

Objective: The purpose of this evaluation was to assess the efficacy of a training in improving competence to address sexual assault among Emergency Department (ED) staff, as well as to compare in-person and online training modalities. Methods: A total of 1564 staff from 76 EDs in acute care hospitals across Ontario participated in either on-sit...

Objective Our primary objective was to examine the perceived level of competence and need for additional training among nurses engaged in the care of sexually assaulted trans persons. Among these nurses, a secondary objective was to examine the impact of prior trans-specific training on their perceived level of competence. Setting An online survey...

Background Transgender (trans) persons experience high rates of sexual victimization, face discrimination by healthcare providers, and may have unique and diverse needs post-victimization. However, there remains a lack of comprehensive trans-specific training among healthcare professionals, including nurses. Objectives Our primary objective was to...

Objectives This study explores the promise of an intersectoral network in enhancing the response to transgender (trans) survivors of sexual assault. Methods One hundred and three representatives of healthcare and community organizations across Ontario, Canada were invited to participate in a survey. Respondents were asked to: 1) identify systemic...

Introduction Intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual assault are pervasive public health and human rights concerns that disproportionately impact trans and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals. Experiences of cisgenderism and transphobia, compounded by racism and other forms of discrimination and structural violence, can hinder access to appropriate...

Background Transgender (trans) people experience high rates of sexual assault (SA) and intimate partner violence (IPV) and seldom receive the care and supports they need post-victimization. However, there is little to no research that aids in the development or improvement of related interventions. We undertook a study to build a novel Canadian res...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a detrimental impact on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and rights globally. However, little is known about the experiences of people with disabilities accessing SRH services during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this community-engaged qualitative study, we examined COVID-related impacts on access to SRH services for p...

Background Many studies have described barriers to gender-affirming surgery (GAS) in Canada; however, few have explored why these barriers persist. To address this knowledge gap, we sought to describe documents related to public health insurance (Medicare) for GAS to identify the types of procedures covered, variations in coverage across provinces...

Background Sex trafficking is highly prevalent, pernicious, and under-recognized. When an individual is trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation within the borders of a single country, it is termed domestic sex trafficking. Sex trafficked persons can experience severe physical and mental health outcomes requiring medical attention and trea...

Staff at violence against women (VAW) organizations provide essential services for survivors of violence. The increase in VAW during the COVID-19 pandemic placed additional pressures on VAW staff. We investigated the impacts of the pandemic on the mental health of VAW staff in the Greater Toronto Area to inform recommendations for policy and practi...

Background Canada’s health care systems underserve people who are transgender and gender diverse (TGD), leading to unique disparities not experienced by other patient groups, such as in accessing gender-affirmation surgery. We sought to explore the experiences of TGD people seeking and accessing gender-affirmation surgery at a publicly funded hospi...

Background Many studies have described barriers to gender-affirming surgery (GAS) in Canada; however, few have explored why these barriers persist. To address this knowledge gap, we sought to describe documents related to public health insurance (Medicare) for GAS to identify the types of procedures covered, variations in coverage across provinces...

Health care providers are highly likely to encounter persons who have been domestically sex trafficked and, therefore, possess valuable insights that could be useful in understanding and improving existing services and supports. In-depth interviews were conducted with 31 health care providers residing and working in Canada’s largest province, Ontar...

Introduction Although there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that persons who have been sex trafficked can suffer devastating health consequences and often face challenges accessing suitable care that addresses their health and overall well-being, little existing research has adopted a survivor-informed approach. Centering the voices of sex...

Objectives To better understand healthcare and social/community service providers’ learning needs associated with supporting transgender and gender diverse (trans) persons who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). Setting An online survey was distributed through the trans-LINK Network in Ontario, Canada. Respondents 163 of 225 healthc...

Community and healthcare organizations have not historically collaborated effectively, leaving gaps in the continuum of care for survivors of sexual assault. These gaps are particularly acutely felt by transgender (trans) survivors, who experience additional barriers to care and face higher rates of sexual assault. To bridge these gaps and enhance...

Background: Sex trafficking of persons, a pervasive public health issue disproportionately affecting the most marginalized within society, often leads to health as well as social consequences. Social service provision to meet the resulting needs is critical, however, little is known about the current pandemic’s impact on providers’ capacity to deli...

Domestic sex trafficking is an emergent area of study with problematic gaps in our understanding of the challenges that inhibit client recovery. As social service providers are often on the frontlines of care provision, in this study, we explored the challenges they experienced when serving domestically sex trafficked adolescents and adults. Semi-s...

Abstract Canadian research on the domestic sex trafficking of adolescents and adults is in its infancy with little exploration of social service providers' knowledge. This is an important gap as international research has identified that providers are well situated yet often lack the knowledge necessary to identify and help sex trafficked persons....

Sexual assault is a pervasive, violent and often gendered crime that can result in significant negative consequences. Many sexual assault survivors consider disclosing to health and social care providers, therapists, and others who collectively fall under the banner of formal support, in order to access information, referrals, treatment and/or emot...

Introduction Le gouvernement canadien s’est engagé à mettre en œuvre un Plan d’action national pour mettre fin à la violence envers les femmes. Toutefois, aucun plan officiel de mise en œuvre n’a été publié. En nous appuyant sur les recommandations déjà formulées et les consultations réalisées, nous avons effectué la première analyse qualitative of...

Context: To enhance the provision of comprehensive supports to transgender (trans) survivors of sexual assault, a structurally marginalized group with complex care needs, we developed an intersectoral network of trans-positive health care and community organizations in Ontario, Canada. Objective: As a baseline evaluation of the network, we condu...

Introduction The Canadian government has committed to a national action plan (NAP) to address violence against women (VAW). However, a formalized plan for implementation has not been published. Building on existing recommendations and consultations, we conducted the first formal and peer-reviewed qualitative analysis of the perspectives of leaders,...

Importance: Vaginoplasty is a relatively common gender-affirming surgery with approximately 200 Ontarians seeking this surgery annually. Although Ontario now offers vaginoplasty in province, the capacity is not meeting demand; the majority of trans and gender-diverse patients continue to seek vaginoplasty out of province. Out-of-province surgery p...

Canadian governments—federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal—have their work cut out after the release of Canada’s National Action Plan to End Gender Based Violence last month.1 Gender based violence is defined as violence on account of “sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, or perceived gender.”1 The action plan, which is inters...

Collaboration across sectors is critical to address complex health problems, particularly during the current COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the ability to collaborate during the pandemic as part of a baseline evaluation of an intersectoral network of healthcare and community organizations established to improve the collective response to transgende...

Introduction There has been limited research on sex trafficking in Canada from a health and health care perspective, despite U.S. research which points to health care providers as optimally positioned to identify and help those who have been sex trafficked. We aim to better understand health care providers’ knowledge about, attitudes towards, and c...

Transgender (trans) survivors of sexual assault are often seen by health care providers who lack the necessary training to provide inclusive care and supports. To foster trans-affirming care provision postsexual assault, in 2019–2020, we developed and successfully evaluated an e-learning curriculum for forensic nurses working across Ontario, Canada...

Sex trafficking has been identified as a prominant health and human rights concern in Canada. However, there has been little empirical research on the topic and existing studies are largely found within the grey literature. This review sought to identify and summarize the current scholarly literature about sex trafficking of women and girls in Cana...

Introduction: Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals often identify with a gender different to the one assigned at birth. Transition is a term used to describe the process TGD individuals take to live as their true gender. Surgery can be a very important aspect of care for members of TGD communities. Transition-related surgery (TRS) refe...

Transgender (trans) people face high rates of sexual assault and often encounter systemic barriers in accessing appropriate care and supports, including, among others, stigma, discrimination, and a lack of provider knowledge. Trans communities and allies in research and the service sector have emphasized the potential of advocacy as a tool to disma...

Background: Physical intimate partner violence (IPV) risk looms large for younger women in Bangladesh. We are, however, yet to know the association between their intersectional social locations and IPV across communities. Drawing on intersectionality theory's tenet that interacting systems of power, oppressions, and privileges work together, we hyp...

Trans survivors of sexual assault have called for the development and implementation of training for care providers. To answer this call, we developed and evaluated an innovative e-learning curriculum for forensic nurses working across Ontario, Canada, on the provision of trans-affirming care. The e-learning curriculum, developed in Storyline 360 b...

Transgender persons experience high rates of sexual assault and often encounter providers who lack the knowledge to deliver appropriate postassault care and supports. To build capacity within health care and social service organizations supporting trans survivors of sexual assault across Ontario, Canada, we undertook a study to inform the developme...

Transgender (trans) persons are sexually assaulted at high rates and often encounter barriers to equitable services and supports. The receipt of timely and appropriate postassault care, provided increasingly by specialized forensic nurses around the world, is critical in ameliorating the harms that accompany sexual assault. In order to adequately r...

Objectives To examine the need for modified safety planning strategies in response to COVID-19-related increases in intimate partner violence (IPV) as the initial phase of adapting an IPV safety planning intervention in Toronto, Ontario. Methods A rapid, systematic review was conducted to elucidate existing safety planning strategies used during p...

In Ontario, Canada, there is a need for an easily accessible training for forensic nurse examiners on the provision of care for abused older adults. In this study, our objective was to develop and evaluate a novel elder abuse nurse examiner e-learning curriculum focused on improving the care provided to older adults. The curriculum was launched on...

Background: Sexual assault remains a serious public health issue with significant impacts on the health and well-being of individual women. Many women's reactions and behaviors post sexual assault are not well understood by the general public, or more worrying, among professionals to whom women frequently turn to for help. An innovative and evidenc...

An ecological framework is useful for understanding how individual, relationship, community, and societal level factors can affect women’s vulnerability to sexual assault. However, most studies have focused on examining individual and relationship factors only, due to measurement challenges and a lack of data at the societal level. The purpose of t...

Background To address the growing international recognition of the inequities faced by transgender (trans) persons and the lack of services that attend to the specific concerns of trans sexual assault survivors, we undertook the development of an intersectoral network of hospital-based violence treatment centers and trans-positive community organiz...

University-based sexual assault has been described as an epidemic. An emerging body of research suggests that sexual assault that occurs during university may have consequences for women’s occupational lives; however, an in-depth understanding of these consequences does not currently exist. Given the significance that the university period holds fo...

A framework of social inclusion can promote equity and aid in preventing and addressing the abuse of older adults. Our objective was to build a social inclusion framework for a comprehensive hospital-based elder abuse intervention being developed. Potential components of such a framework, namely, health determinants and guiding principles, were ext...

University of Toronto Journal of Public Health

There is an abundance of research on the health consequences of sexual assault during university, but less attention has been paid to how sexual assault also shapes women’s everyday lives. To develop an understanding of the everyday aftermath of sexual assault, we used narrative inquiry to analyze how women textually represent everyday living after...

Sexual assault against transgender (trans) persons is a complex public health issue requiring the coordinated effort of multiple sectors to address. In response to a global call to improve health equity for persons of diverse gender identities, leaders across health and social service sectors need to enhance collaboration to champion trans-affirmin...

Although sexual assault is associated with significant negative psychological health outcomes, few survivors seek support from formal providers. This study explored the barriers to accessing and benefitting from services for sexual assault, as disclosed in narrative posts on social media, using qualitative methodology. Of the 1,179 narratives poste...

The purpose of this study was to determine the clinical and non-clinical outcomes that pregnant women with obesity value as pertaining to their health and that of their babies. In this systematic review of the qualitative literature, a search of four databases was conducted for studies using qualitative methods in pregnant women with obesity. From...

Issue: Sexual assault against transgender (trans) persons is a complex issue that requires the coordinated effort of health care and social service sectors to address. In collaboration with the Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres (SA/DVTCs), which comprise of hospital-based sexual violence treatment centers that pr...

Issue: Across Ontario, Canada’s most densely populated province, there are 35 hospital-based Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres (SA/DVTCs), which provide services, including emergency medical care, crisis intervention, documentation of injuries, collection of forensic evidence, medical follow-up, counseling and referral, and communi...

Sometimes the behaviors and reactions of sexual assault sur-vivors can challenge the understanding of family, friends, and professionals. As a supportive response to disclosure has been shown to be integral to the healing of survivors, the failure to understand the full range of potential behaviors in the aftermath of sexual assault can result in n...

Issue: A Canadian population–based study estimated that almost one in 10 (8.2%) older adults in Canada experienced some form of abuse or neglect in 2014, which amounts to 766,247 older Canadians. Despite the prevalence of elder abuse, there is no standard provision of training to provide care for abused older adults at hospital-based violence treat...

There is a global call to action to improve transgender (trans) health to achieve health equity for people of all gender identities. Trans persons experience high rates of sexual assault and have historically had limited or no access to health care that meets their needs. As an initial step in addressing this, we evaluated a sexual assault treatmen...

Background In Bangladesh, little is known about community-level factors shaping married women’s experiences of male intimate partner physical violence (MIPPV); it is also unknown if these factors interact with each other. We examined the (1) association between four residential community characteristics defined by the attributes of ever married wom...

In Bangladesh, one in five currently married women (CMW) presently experience male intimate partner physical violence (MIPPV). While previous studies analysed women’s individual-level multiple locations–younger age, lower education, income, and poverty in an additive manner, we took an intersectional approach to look at the effects of their multipl...

There is a dearth of information about the association of victim-related and assailant-related characteristics and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among sexually assaulted women. Recently, Statistics Canada included items measuring the possible presence of PTSD symptoms in their 2014 nationally representative General Social Survey on Victimiza...

Background Sexual assault in adolescence and adulthood is a pervasive crime often resulting in trauma to survivors. Despite its considerable consequences, relatively few survivors disclose the sexual assault to formal support providers (e.g., health care providers). The literature suggests there are several factors associated with reduced disclosur...

Sarah D Kosa,1,2 Sheila Macdonald,1 Maureen Etkin,3 Raeann Rideout,3 Janice Du Mont2,4 1Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatments Centres, Toronto, ON, Canada; 2Women’s College Research Institute, Women’s College Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada; 3Elder Abuse Ontario, Etobicoke, ON, Canada; 4Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Uni...

Many of the Somali women who have immigrated to other countries, including Canada, have experienced Female Genital Circumcision/ Mutilation/ Cutting (FGC). While there is literature on the medical aspects of FGC, we were interested in understanding the daily life experiences and bodily sensations of Somali-Canadian women in the context of FGC. Four...

The negative consequences of sexual assault on women’s health are well-researched. Given that a reciprocal relationship between health and occupation exists, it is likely that the consequences of sexual assault extend beyond health to include consequences for women’s occupations. However, whether and how women’s occupations are changed by an experi...

Among 136 women sexually assaulted by a current or former male intimate partner presenting to hospital-based violence treatment centers, 58 (42.6%) received HIV post-exposure prophylaxis (HIV PEP) counseling by a specially trained sexual assault nurse. We identified factors that were associated with receipt of HIV PEP counseling. Those who received...

Janice Du Mont,1,2 Daisy Kosa,3 Sheila Macdonald,3 Robin Mason1,21Women’s College Research Institute, Women’s College Hospital, 2Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 3Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres, Toronto, ON, CanadaHealthcare providers and trainees often lack the requisite knowledge an...

In Canada, Indigenous women are more likely than non-Indigenous women to be survivors of sexual assault and experience sexual assaults that are more serious in terms of physical injury and other health-related consequences. Despite their related needs for care and support, there is a paucity of research to date that has examined their uptake of spe...

Research Report prepared for Ministry of Status of Women, Government of Ontario

This study locates the victim impact statements of raped women in the sociolegal context of significant sentencing law reforms introduced in Canada to address an ascendant victim’s rights movement. We examine 38 reported sentencing decisions in sexual assault cases in Ontario, Canada (1999–2010). Our objectives are to discern (a) whether the archet...

Background Little is known about the health service utilization of women sexually assaulted by their intimate partners, as compared with those sexually assaulted by other perpetrators. To address this gap, we describe the use of acute care services post-victimization, as well as a broad range of survivor and assault characteristics, across women as...

Objectives: To pilot and evaluate a novel Elder Abuse Nurse Examiner Curriculum and its associated training materials for their efficacy in improving Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE)s' knowledge of elder abuse and competence in delivering care to abused older adults. Methods: Pilot training was held with 18 SANEs from across Ontario, Canada....

Background Our objective was to explore whether the link between discrimination and self-rated health status differed as a function of discrimination type, including discrimination based on ethnicity/culture, race, physical appearance (other than skin colour), religion, age, and disability. MethodsA sample of 19,422 men and women aged 15 and older...

Few adolescent and adult women seek out formal support services in the acute period (7 days or less) following a sexual assault. Instead, many women choose to disclose weeks, months, or even years later. This delayed disclosure may be challenging to support workers, including those in health-care settings, who lack the knowledge and skills to respo...

Introduction: Drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) can be characterized as predatory, where the survivor is covertly or forcibly administered an incapacitating or disinhibiting drug. The purpose of our study was to determine what factors, if any, are associated with cases classified as predatory DFSA. Methods: Cases were classified on toxicolo...

According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics 2008 survey data, female adolescents experience rates of sexual assault that are more than double that of female young adults (1). In the most recent clinical paediatric guidelines on adolescent sexual assault, it was emphasized that adolescent victims have specific treatment and management ne...

Research Brief prepared for Elder Abuse Ontario and the Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres

Research Brief prepared for the Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres

Objective: As a critical step in advancing a comprehensive response to elder abuse built on existing forensic nursing-led hospital-based programmes, we developed a list of skills-based competencies for use in an Elder Abuse Nurse Examiner curriculum. Participants and setting: Programme leaders of 30 hospital-based forensic nursing-led sexual ass...

In 2014, encouraged by the Board of Directors,Women at the Centre embarked on a participatory action research project to explore the physical and emotional impact of strangulation on women survivors who had experienced strangulation within the context of an intimate partner relationship. It was hoped that the results would provide direction on how...

In circumstances in which child sexual abuse/assault is suspected, pediatric guidelines recommend referral to services such as multidisciplinary hospital-based violence treatment centers, for specialized medical treatment, forensic documentation, and counseling. As little is known about how such services are perceived, the objective of this case re...

Globally, intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive and insidious human rights problem with significant adverse physical health outcomes for women. Intimate partner violence has also been closely associated with poor mental health and substance use problems. However, little is known about the relationship among these co-occurring problems and...

Introduction Elder abuse, a universal human rights problem, is associated with many negative consequences. In most jurisdictions, however, there are no comprehensive hospital-based interventions for elder abuse that address the totality of needs of abused older adults: psychological, physical, legal, and social. As the first step towards the develo...

This article provides an overview of the development of a research agenda on resident-to-resident aggression (RRA) in long-term care facilities by an expert panel of researchers and practitioners. A one-day consensus building workshop using a modified Delphi approach was held to gain consensus on nomenclature and an operational definition for RRA,...

Background: Elder abuse is an increasingly important issue that must be addressed in a systematic and coordinated way. Objective: Our objective was to evaluate the perceived feasibility of establishing an elder abuse care program at hospital-based sexual assault and domestic violence treatment centers in Ontario, Canada. Method: In July 2012,...

Introduction: There is still little known about survivors' experiences of and satisfaction with comprehensive nursing-led hospital-based sexual assault and domestic violence treatment programs. Method: To address this gap, we surveyed and collected information from clients/guardians presenting to 30 of 35 of Ontario's Sexual Assault/Domestic Vio...

There is strong evidence that women with serious or chronic mental illness experience higher rates of violence than women in the general population. Our objective was to examine the risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), a form of violence that is often recurrent and linked to negative physical and psychological consequences, among a representati...

Little is known about the characteristics of women with disabilities who have experienced abuse and their satisfaction with care received from specialized healthcare providers working in hospital-based violence services. To address this gap, we surveyed clients presenting to 30 sexual assault/domestic violence treatment centers (SA/DVTCs) in Ontari...

Despite the increasing implementation of standardized rape kits across jurisdictions, the medico-legal findings generated by these tools are often not related to positive criminal justice outcomes. Given that there has been no global investigation of the factors that might impede their successful use in cases of sexual assault, we conducted a revie...

This descriptive study aims to provide new information about the services used by sexually assaulted men and adolescent boys presenting to specialized hospital-based sexual assault programs and further insight into the factors that may be associated with their victimization. Information was collected from 38 male clients aged 12+ presenting to 29 s...

Report prepared for the Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres

Report prepared for CERIS –The Ontario Metropolis Centre

Sexual assault is a common and serious health issue that is underreported and has low follow-up rates. The myriad of psychological sequelae of sexual assault are well documented; however, there is a dearth of literature on the prevalence of preexisting mental health issues in survivors of sexual assault. This exploratory study compares victims seen...