Depending on how "sexual abuse" is defined, 7 to 62 percent of women and 3 to 19 percent of men were sexually abused in childhood at least once. Prevention programs target children, usually at school. Such programs teach children to identify potentially abusive situations, resist advances and report approaches, and have confidence that they are right to resist sexually abusive adult behaviors. These prevention programs are not usually tested before being implemented, according to a national audit, and most evaluations of these programs have not used control groups to determine program impact. This typically leads to an overestimation of program effectiveness. Characteristics of effective programs are active participation, explicit training, group training, standardized materials, integration into the school curriculum, long duration, parental involvement, and teacher education. Children's capacity to benefit from prevention education is influenced by their age, socioeconomic status, and self-esteem. Some practical suggestions for curriculum materials are to properly emphasize the risk posed by familiar adults, provide information on the tactics used to seduce children into sexual abuse, and design programs to meet the need of both boys and girls. 103 notes and 106 references