Taking data to action to the next level: Launching the VACS data dashboard
8th July 2025
Before the VACS data dashboard, the findings from the Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS) were accessible only by searching through multiple PDF reports and factsheets.
Now, VACS data is easily accessible to any user in seconds, making it easier for researchers, policymakers, and advocates to understand the prevalence of the issue and use this evidence to call for and take action to end violence against children.
The Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS)* are the world's most comprehensive source of data on the prevalence of violence against children and youth, risk and protective factors, associated health and social outcomes, and disclosure and service seeking.
They provide critical insights to inform prevention and response efforts aimed at addressing violence as a global public health and human rights issue. VACS data has informed the development of national action plans in 14 countries, corporal punishment bans in 11 countries, and child marriage bans in 9 countries.
However, to ensure violence prevention and response are informed by evidence, VACS data must be more easily available to a wider audience, including practitioners, policymakers, advocates, researchers and media. Until now, VACS findings were accessible only by searching through multiple PDF reports and factsheets**.
Now, the new VACS Data Dashboard provides immediate access to VACS data across 24 surveys in 21 countries.
The dashboard is simple, interactive, and intuitive, with full functionality in low-bandwidth settings. Users can easily filter through hundreds of key data points by type of violence, country, age group, and gender, generating custom graphs and tables that can be downloaded in multiple formats, making it easy to incorporate them into slide decks or social media content.
VACS indicators included in the dashboard
1. Background characteristics
Education
Socioeconomic conditions
Child marriage
Disability
2. Any violence (in childhood and in the past 12 months)
3. Sexual violence (in childhood and in the past 12 months)
Perpetrators of sexual violence
Location of sexual violence
Disclosure and service access
Consequences associated with sexual violence
4. Emotional violence (in childhood and in the past 12 months)
5. Physical violence (in childhood and in the past 12 months)
Disclosure and service access
Consequences associated with physical violence
6. Overlap of types of violence
7. Sexual risk-taking behaviors and HIV
8. Unwanted online sexual experiences
9. Youth-perpetrated violence
10. Gender norms
11. INSPIRE indicators
12. School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV)
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How was the dashboard developed?
The project consisted of five main stages:
The discovery phase, which involved interviews with stakeholders from different VACS countries to guide the development and learn what they expected from this tool.
Deciding which VACS indicators to include in the dashboard.
The data were extracted from 24 VACS PDF reports. For the first round, this extraction process was performed using a Python script, which had to be tailored to each country to maximize data capture.
Following extraction, the team dedicated significant time to manually verifying the data's accuracy.
The design and build phase, which consisted of materializing the dashboard on our website.
The current version of the dashboard includes more than 100 indicators and more than 5000 individual data points.
We wanted the dashboard to be a powerful tool to help inform policy and program development, translate complex data into accessible insights, support research and advocacy, and enhance public awareness about violence against children.
Launching the VACS data dashboard
In June 2025, we launched the dashboard jointly with the World Health Organization and experts from different fields, such as governments, academia, and civil society. The speakers highlighted the diverse country experiences and pathways to using the VACS data to inform targeted policy and programmatic interventions.
The Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys have been a game changer. Having this new dashboard will address that a lot. It's great to have data. It's super important. We need data. But sometimes our data is very complicated for policymakers. It's very difficult to use for civil society, etc. And and this new dashboard, I think, will do the trick Data is an essential tool of every field, and having the possibility to continue these surveys would be extremely important.
What is really essential about it is it's the next stage of really making data accessible and putting it in the hands of users of all forms, whether it's a young person, a policymaker, a researcher or a community based organization.
Since we conducted the second Kenya VACS in 2019 we have been able to develop a multi-sectoral violence against children prevention and response plan. This was only possible due to the evidence we have.
I see the VACS as being an important starting point for generating the information that countries need, and if countries are doing it for the first time, then that means there's a whole lot that they don't know, and that there's a whole lot of information that the VACS brings.
Chi-Chi UndieTechnical Director and Senior Associate, Population Council
VACS data highlights how pervasive violence against children is. As a society, sometimes we can be in a state of denial, and not recognize the kind of violence that children face. Not having this data was leading to a lot of inaction. When you have data it's very hard to ignore it, and you're pushed into action. This data also gives us a shared language to talk about violence against children. It's a broad term, and sometimes it can mean very different things in different cultures. In some cultures, certain kinds of violence can be seen as acceptable. So I think this kind of framework gives a shared benchmark for all countries to work towards and measure themselves against.
In our ongoing commitment to making data on violence against children and youth more accessible and actionable, we are expanding the dashboard to include new data from recent VACS. Soon, users will be able to explore findings from Jamaica, Ethiopia, Tanzania and the first city in the United States.
In addition to these, we will incorporate data from VACS in humanitarian contexts, specifically in Uganda and Ethiopia. These unique datasets provide insights into the experiences of children and youth affected by displacement and living in refugee camps.
To further increase accessibility, we will also translate the dashboard into Spanish and French, making it more usable to policymakers, practitioners and researchers from other regions. Stay tuned for these updates!
*The Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys (VACS) are led by national governments, with technical assistance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of the Together for Girls partnership.
** Public use datasets are also available upon request.
