Under the Raluca Iosif Intimate Partner Violence Research Award, Josie Caves will contribute to the academic body of knowledge related to fatal intimate-partner violence. Photo courtesy of Josie Caves.

The 2017 Raluca Iosif Intimate Partner Violence Research Award has been granted to Josie Caves, a doctoral student at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. The award will support Caves’s research on the differing factors that contribute to intimate-partner violence that manifests as homicide as compared to homicide/suicide.

IntraHealth International launched the Raluca Iosif Intimate Partner Violence Research Award in partnership with the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center in 2016 to honor our former colleague, Raluca Iosif. Iosif was a cherished friend and champion of global health who was killed as a result of intimate-partner violence in 2015.

This is the most grotesque and obvious form of gender inequality.

An estimated 30% of women experience intimate-partner violence worldwide. This 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 says. “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 is a second-year graduate student of epidemiology at UNC. Her research on intimate-partner violence is informed by her work in both international and local contexts—including on treatment adherence for people living with HIV, with the Kibera Community Self-Help Programme in Nairobi, researching human papillomavirus screenings for women in rural Nicaragua, and most recently serving as a research assistant to the Injury and Violence Prevention Branch of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Under the Raluca Iosif Intimate Partner Violence Research Award, Caves will contribute to the academic body of knowledge related to fatal intimate-partner violence, pursuing evidence that can be used to develop interventions that will ultimately prevent this type of violence against women.

You can contribute to the Raluca Iosif Memorial Fund today to help prevent violence against women around the world.