Catz Alumna Publishes Landmark Public Health Article
St Catherine’s College recognises the recent publication of an influential article by Dr Jennifer Prah (1985, Social Studies), the Amartya Sen Professor of Health Equity, Economics and Policy and Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
‘Post-Separation Abuse: An Ignored Public Health Crisis and Preventable Injustice’ examines the prevalence and human rights implications of psychological and physical violence against women and children, with particular emphasis on intimate partner violence, its lasting impact across generations, and its deeply detrimental consequences for health and wellbeing. Co-authored with Professor Lawrence O. Gostin, Founding Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law at Georgetown University, the article has latterly been featured in The Lancet.
The authors argue that domestic and post-separation abuse have long been minimised or treated as private matters, despite their clear status as public health emergencies. The article advances three key instructions: that the health and wellbeing of children and protective mothers must be prioritised above all other considerations; that significant reform of the legal and judicial systems is required, including the re-classification and criminalisation of post-separation abuse; and that healthcare professionals, along with legal and child protection officers, have a critical role to play in the early identification and first preventative steps of ongoing abuse.
Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont Professor at Harvard University and Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences, has observed: “Jennifer Prah Ruger has substantially advanced the reach of public reasoning, not just about healthcare, but about social justice in general.”
The article has since been commissioned for publication by The Lancet, a leading British peer-reviewed medical journal that substantially influences the progress and procedures of clinical practice and global health policy. Its inclusion in the journal reflects both the significance of this article, and the growing significance that post-separation abuse should come to claim across healthcare, legal, and policy systems. As the article states: “Post-separation abuse should be a crime, with protection orders to address it, and laws to enforce against it.”
St Catherine’s College recognises the work of Dr Jennifer Prah and Professor Lawrence O. Gostin in bringing sustained attention to post-separation abuse as a public health and human rights concern. As Prah noted in her recent interview with Penn Today, this work represents the beginning of requisite progress. By framing post-separation abuse as a preventable injustice and an unequivocal public health crisis, the article seeks to inspire further policy development and institutional accountability.
Images courtesy of UCSF School of Nursing and The Cipher Brief