US Sexual Harassment Reports Nearly Double Between 2018 and 2024, Though Causes Remain Unclear

In 2024, nearly one in four American adults said they had been sexually harassed within the previous year. Six years earlier, the figure was about one in ten. That gap, from 10.7 percent to 24.3 percent, is the central finding of a new study from researchers at Tulane University, published online on November 12, 2026, in the American Journal of Public Health.

The work was led by Dr. Anita Raj of the Newcomb Institute at Tulane in New Orleans, Louisiana, and colleagues. They compared two editions of the #MeToo National Surveys on Sexual Harassment and Assault, one from 2018 and one from 2024. The question was narrow: how did reports of past-year sexual harassment among US adults change between the two?

The backdrop is the #MeToo movement, which gained global momentum in 2017 and drew attention to harassment and its harms. In its wake, more than 80 anti-sexual harassment bills passed across 25 US states, mostly aimed at the workplace. Far less was known about whether people's actual experiences had changed, which is the gap this study tries to address.

The analysis drew on cross-sectional survey data from 5,293 adults, weighted to produce nationally representative estimates. The 2024 survey asked about verbal harassment, cyber harassment, dating coercion, physically aggressive harassment, and sexual assault, across settings including public spaces and workplaces. For 2018, the researchers had to work backward, classifying past-year harassment from respondents' reports of lifetime experiences and the timing of their most recent incident.

The increases appeared in both sexes. Among men, reports rose from 6.7 percent to 15.2 percent. Among women, they rose from 14.3 percent to 31.8 percent. Women reported higher prevalence in both years. After adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, the odds of reporting past-year harassment in 2024 were 2.80 times those in 2018. The rise in odds was steeper in the South than in other US regions, though the change over time did not differ significantly between women and men.

The authors are cautious about what the numbers mean. The study relies on self-reported experiences and cannot establish causation. The surveys also differed in design: the 2024 version separated cyber harassment in public and private online spaces, while the 2018 version used a single item. Dr. Raj put the uncertainty plainly: "It is unclear if this is a true rise in incidents or improved recognition and disclosure."

She also said the finding holds either way. The study, she noted, documents a significant increase in reports since #MeToo gained momentum, which may reflect greater awareness and willingness to report rather than a real rise in incidents. "Regardless," she said, it shows that sexual harassment remains pervasive, especially for women.

The researchers call for policies that extend protections to public and online spaces and strengthen accountability. They also stress equitable protections and continued national surveillance, so that future surveys can track whether the trend holds and, eventually, help separate changes in behavior from changes in reporting.