Beth Moracco, PhD

About

Dr. Moracco joined the faculty of the Department of Health Behavior in 2008, and has served as director of the master's program since 2012. She is actively involved in public health research and practice in North Carolina and globally.
 
As a researcher and a public health practitioner, Moracco is skilled in intervention development and evaluation research and an expert in engaging with communities and community-based organizations.
 
Her research focuses upon the primary and secondary prevention of gender-based violence in the U.S. and global settings using qualitative and quantitative methods. Moracco’s international work includes five years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  She served as co-investigator on studies focused on the effectiveness of conditional cash transfers on pregnant women’s prevention of mother-to-child transmission adherence in the DRC.

Currently Dr. Moracco is the principal Investigator for a study funded by the National Institute of Justice evaluating “best practices” for domestic violence protective orders in North Carolina, a study examining firearm surrender and confiscation in domestic violence protective order cases, and a pilot study examining the effectiveness of group-based peer support to decrease social isolation and increase social connectedness among newly-resettled female refugees from the DRC. She is also a co-principal investigator for a CDC-funded study evaluating an ongoing Rape Prevention Education-funded program, Wise Guys: The Next Level, which addresses primary prevention of sexual perpetration by addressing known risk and protective factors. Previously she led assessments and served as co-investigator on a range of studies within North Carolina, and globally.

Moracco serves as the evaluator for a statewide initiative to incorporate screening and brief intervention for intimate partner violence into primary health care in North Carolina and previously led evaluations of primary prevention programs for intimate partner violence and legislation restricting access to firearms in dating violence protective order cases
 
She is a member of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Court’s Domestic Violence Committee. a research fellow at UNC-G’s Center for New North Carolinians, and core faculty at UNC’s Injury Prevention Research Center.

Beth Moracco in the Gillings News

Honors and Awards

Edward G. McGavran Award for Excellence in Teaching
2019, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Representative Courses

Planning Health Promotion Programs, HBEH 772 | Syllabus

Research Activities

Research interests
Ethics
Global health
Health behavior
Health policy
Injury prevention
Reproductive health
Substance abuse
Violence prevention
Women's health

Research activities
Dr. Moracco conducts applied research on the primary and secondary prevention of violence, primarily gender-based violence in global and domestic settings. Her work is focused on evaluating violence prevention programs and policies while simultaneously building the capacity of stakeholders to design and evaluate their own interventions.

Key Publications

Conditional cash transfers and uptake of and retention in prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission care: a randomised controlled trial. Yotebieng M, Thirumurthy H, Moracco KE, Kawende B, Chalachala JL, Wenzi LK, Ravelomanana NL, Edmonds A, Thompson D, Okitolonda EW, Behets F. (2016). Lancet HIV, 3(2), S2352-3018.

"My First Thought was Croutons": Perceptions of Cigarettes and Cigarette Smoke Constituents Among Adult Smokers and Nonsmokers. Moracco KE, Morgan JC, Mendel J, Teal R, Noar SM, Ribisl KM, Hall MG, Brewer NT. (2016). Nicotine Tobacco Research, 18(7), 1566-74.

"Compassion, pleasantry, and hope": a process evaluation of a volunteer-based nonprofit. Mye SC, Moracco KE (2015). Evaluation and Program Planning, June.

Education