How collaborations are advancing gender-based violence research and training at UNC
April 5, 2016
An article by Jessica Porter, published April 5 in Endeavors, describes the involvement of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health researchers in the UNC Gender-Based Violence Research Group.
Stephanie DeLong, doctoral student in epidemiology, and Sandra Martin, PhD, associate dean for research and professor of maternal and child health, are leaders of the initiative. Along with Steve Marshall, PhD, professor of epidemiology and director of the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center, and others, DeLong and Martin will hold a summit on April 6, called “Violence Across the Life Course,” which will examine child abuse, violence during adolescence, sexual assault on college campuses and intimate partner violence.
The Endeavors article, “Starting the Conversation,” is reprinted here, in part, and can be read in full here.
In January 2015, college students flocked to campus showings of “The Hunting Ground.” While dozens of universities appear in the film, it has a clear focus. As images of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library, Polk Place and Bell Tower flash across the screen during the two-minute trailer, alumna Annie Clark says, “The first few weeks I made some of my best friends, but two of us were sexually assaulted before classes even started.”
Clark and fellow alumna Andrea Pino were featured extensively in the documentary, which shone a light on the issue of college sexual assault. The Sundance Film Festival marked the two “among a growing, unstoppable network of young women who will no longer be silent.” College sexual assault, though, is just one type of gender-based violence, a topic that has received increased attention both domestically and internationally in recent years.
As activism and awareness for gender-based violence have increased — broadly and at UNC — so has the push for research on the topic.
Stephanie DeLong, a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology, is just one of a number of students focused on this type of research at Carolina. Specifically, she examines partner violence among adolescents in northeastern South Africa.
DeLong quickly learned she wasn’t the only student on campus who saw a need to bring different types of gender-based violence research together. She partnered with fellow epidemiology student Aliza Gellman-Chomsky and Marta Mulawa from the Gillings School’s Department of Health Behavior. They discussed the value of increasing collaborations across departments. “There were a lot of people doing this work, but we were scattered all over campus,” she says.
To bring the research together, the trio sent out a series of emails to multiple departments within the Gillings School to gauge interest in the project. Three years later, those emails and enthusiasm have blossomed into a more formal collaboration involving students, faculty members, practitioners and other researchers from UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, School of Medicine, School of Social Work, Student Wellness and Carolina Women’s Center.
Today, the UNC Gender-Based Violence Research Group (GBVRG) collaborates on manuscripts, advocates for student training opportunities, hosts speakers every month, and holds an annual summit to raise awareness about gender-based violence and research occurring at Carolina. On April 6, this year’s summit, called “Violence Across the Life Course,” will touch on child abuse, violence during adolescence, sexual assault on college campuses, and intimate partner violence.
[Read more here.]Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu
