Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs) are community-level interventions that seek to improve the response to sexual assault by increasing coordination and building positive relationships among the systems that respond to sexual assault, particularly the legal, medical, and mental health/advocacy systems (Greeson & Campbell, 2013; National Sexual Violence Resource Center [NSVRC], 2011; Oregon Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force [OAGSATF], 2009; Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape [PCAR], 2002; Zajac, 2006, 2009). Ultimately, SARTs seek to improve the processing of sexual assault cases in the legal system and improve sexual assault victims' experiences of seeking help post-assault. Despite these common goals, prior descriptive research (using convenience sampling) has illustrated that SARTs are heterogeneous with respect to how they are structured. More specifically SARTs vary according to the breadth of different stakeholder groups that are a part of the team (membership breadth), and their implementation of formal structures (formalization) and collaborative activities (case review, multidisciplinary cross-training, policy and protocol development and review, and program evaluation) to organization their work. Diffusion of Innovation Theory (Rogers, 2005) suggests that such variation in how SARTs are structured may create variation in SARTs' effectiveness at improving victims' help-seeking experiences and legal outcomes. As of yet, there have been no studies with rigorous, representative samples that have examined how SARTs are structured, and no studies have examined whether differences in SARTs' structure are related to differences in SARTs' effectiveness. Therefore, this national study of n=172 SARTs was conducted in pursuit of three aims: (1) to use random sampling methods to obtain a nationally representative sample of SARTs to assess their structural characteristics (2) to use cluster analysis to empirically derive subgroups of SARTs with different profiles based on their implementation of formal structures and collaborative activities; (3) to examine the relationship between SARTs' structural characteristics and their effectiveness at achieving improvements in legal outcomes and victims' help-seeking experiences. Interviews were conducted with SART leaders, who reported on their SARTs' structural characteristics and their perceptions of their SARTs' effectiveness. Descriptive findings indicated that SARTs do vary in how they are structured. Cluster analysis was used to identify three subgroups of SARTs that varied in their implementation of formal structures/resources (formalization) and collaborative activities to organize their efforts: "Low Adopters" (characterized by low formalization and less institutionalization of collaborative activities), "High Adopters except Program Evaluation" (characterized by high formalization and institutionalization of collaborative activities, but no program evaluation), and "High Adopters plus Program Evaluation" (characterized by high formalization and institutionalization of collaborative activities, as well as program evaluation). Findings indicated that SARTs in the "High Adopters plus Program Evaluation" group tended to be perceived as more effective than SARTs in the Low Adopters group. Other contextual features of SARTs and the communities they served were also examined as predictors of effectiveness. Implications for future research, policy, and practice for SARTs are discussed.
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