Epidemiology student wins IntraHealth award for research related to intimate partner violence
March 24, 2017
Josie Caves, doctoral student in epidemiology at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, has received IntraHealth International’s 2017 Raluca Iosif Intimate Partner Violence Research Award. The award will support Caves’ research on the factors that determine whether intimate-partner violence manifests as homicide or homicide/suicide.
An estimated 30 percent of women experience intimate-partner violence worldwide. The award aims to advance academic research to enhance the understanding of intimate-partner violence as a global health problem and a human rights violation.
“It is so wonderful that organizations such as IntraHealth are supporting research and interventions to prevent intimate-partner violence,” Caves said. “This is the most grotesque and obvious form of gender inequality, and the ubiquitous nature of this form of violence demonstrates that we are still in our infancy of understanding its prevention. I am so honored to be the first recipient of this award.”
Caves’ research is informed by her work in both international and local contexts. She has studied treatment adherence for people living with HIV, has worked the Kibera Community Self-Help Programme in Nairobi, Kenya, and has studied the impact of human papillomavirus screenings for women in rural Nicaragua. Most recently, she served as a research assistant in the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ Injury and Violence Prevention Branch.
The research award was established in 2016 to honor Raluca Iosif, a program development manager at IntraHealth who was killed in an act of violence in 2015.
A version of this article appeared originally on IntraHealth International’s website.
Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu