Gender and Public Health: Cutting Edge Research
with
Lisa M. Bates
Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
speaking on "Women’s Empowerment and Early Marriage in Rural Bangladesh"
Wendy Chavkin
Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
speaking on "Biology and Destiny Revisited: Women, Work, Birthrates, and Assisted Reproductive Technologies"
Theresa Exner
Assistant Professor of Medical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University
speaking on "Sex and the State: Working with New York to Increase Access to the Female Condom"
and
Jennifer Hirsch
Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
speaking on "Love, Marriage and HIV"
Monday, February 11th, 2008
4pm
Deutsches Haus, Columbia University
420 West 116th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive
Lisa M. Bates, SM, ScD received her doctorate in June 2005 from the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Broadly speaking, she is interested in how social stratification and processes of social change translate into health outcomes. Her dissertation focuses on socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of immigrant adaptation and health in the US, with attention to life course issues, subgroup differences in the effects of immigration on health, and critical perspectives on acculturation. She is interested in extending this research to a greater focus on "1.5" and second generation immigrants, the role of multiple geographic and social contexts, and the salience of race in immigrant adaptation and health. Ms. Bates combines training in social epidemiology with a background in qualitative research and international health and is concurrently engaged in research on the changing sociocultural and economic determinants of women's health in Bangladesh, with a particular focus on women's empowerment and the mediating role of the institution of marriage. Prior to commencing her doctoral training, Ms. Bates was involved in policy-oriented research on a range of population, development, gender, and reproductive health topics.
Dr. Wendy Chavkin currently serves as the director of the Soros Reproductive Health and Rights Fellowship and as the chair to the Board of Directors of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health. From 1994 to 2002 she was editor-in-chief of The Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, and from 1984 to 1988, she served as the director of The Bureau of Maternity Services and Family Planning in New York City’s Department of Health. She has written extensively about women’s reproductive health issues for over two decades, including the consequences of welfare reform for the health of women and children, occupational health, reproductive health in medical education, HIV, and illegal drug use in pregnancy. Dr. Chavkin is the 2004-2005 Fulbright New Century Scholar for her research on Fertility Decline and the Empowerment of Women.
Theresa Exner is an Assistant Professor of Medical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, where she teaches human sexuality to psychiatric residents and medical students. She also teaches in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia. As a Co-investigator with the HIV Center's Interdisciplinary Research Methods (IRM) Core, Theresa provides consultation to a variety of researchers and community organizations on project and intervention development, training staff on sexuality related issues, and assessment of sexual behavior. Theresa has been involved in HIV prevention work since 1988. Pervious federally funded initiatives include HIV/STI prevention efforts with women accessing contraceptive care in medically under-served areas of NYC; evaluation of a school-based, peer- and teacher-delivered prevention program for youth in rural KwaZulu Natal, South Africa; and development and piloting of an HIV prevention program targeting Nigerian men. Currently, in partnership with the NYSDOH AIDS Institute, she is launching a state-wide structural intervention to promote female condom use, and, as Co-PI with Dr. Joanne Mantell (PI), is developing and will pilot-test an intervention to promote reproductive health among HIV+ women and men entering primary HIV Care in Capetown, South Africa.
Dr. Jennifer Hirsch's research focuses on gender, sexuality, and reproductive health, U.S.-Mexico migration and migrant health, the applications of anthropological theory and methods to public health research and programs, and faith-based approaches to public health. Her published work has appeared in journals such as American Journal of Public Health, AIDS, and Culture Health and Sexuality, and in 2002, the University of California Press published her landmark study, "A Courtship After Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families", exploring changing ideas and practices of love, sexuality and marriage among Mexicans in the U.S. and in Mexico. She has two other recent co-edited volumes on love: Modern Loves (2006, University of Michigan) and Love and Globalization (2007, Vanderbilt). Her major current project is an NIH-funded comparative ethnographic study that explores the factors that put married women at risk for HIV infection in five countries; Mexico, Nigeria, Uganda, Vietnam, and Papua-New Guinea.
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