Questions about sexual abuse before and after age 16 were included in a general population survey of a representative sample of 1,052 women and 975 men in the United Kingdom. Among the women, 12.5 percent reported experiencing some form of sexual abuse before the age of 16; 11.7 percent of the men gave such a report. After the age of 16, the same percentage of women (12.5 percent) reported being sexually abused, but the percentage of men reporting sexual abuse decreased to 3.2 percent. Neither the women nor the men indicated any link between childhood sexual abuse and their subsequent physical health; however, for both sexes, those who reported having been sexually abused after the age of 16 indicated poorer physical health compared to those who had not been abused. For women, there was a strong relationship between sexual abuse before or after age 16 and current mental health. This was not true for men; however, both men and women who had been sexually abused, whether before or after age 16, had a strong tendency to report poorer mental health than those who had never been sexually abused. As always in a cross-sectional study, it was not possible to infer causation with certainty. 5 tables and 37 references