Ethics, Equity, and Gender
Ethics, Equity, and Gender in the Health Systems Program
A key priority of our research in health systems is to ensure and support social justice measures alongside health impacts, particularly for marginalized communities. We work to mitigate inequalities in access to health services and promote health equity.
In our research, service, and teaching, we emphasize the need to understand and address a wide range of ethical challenges relevant to public health practice and research in low- and middle-income countries. Our faculty study how to maximize the benefit of public health research and practice, while developing appropriate risk mitigation strategies, especially when our work involves vulnerable populations. Faculty also partner with institutions globally to support the development and operation of ethics training programs and seek to improve collective understandings for what it means to be respectful and effective health system researchers and public health professionals.
Our faculty also specialize in gender and health systems, studying how gendered power relations create inequities within different areas of the health system and how the intersection of social stratifiers—such as gender, age, race and ethnicity—leads to different experiences of disadvantage and marginalization within the health system. Our research in this domain encompasses both clients using the health system as well as those working in the health system.
Examples of Latest Projects
Johns Hopkins University-Addis Ababa University Research Ethics Training Program: JHU-AAU RETP is a U.S. National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center-funded partnership designed to support individual and institutional research ethics capacity at AAU. The program has a central emphasis on creating a new track in research ethics within AAU’s MPH program and training cohorts of trainees within the program, providing academic and research mentorship.
Assessing social justice in economic evaluation to scale up novel MDR-TB regimens: Funded by the US National Institutes of Health, this study of people’s experiences with treatment for multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) combined philosophical inquiry and qualitative research. The study team used their findings to develop a step-by-step analytic technique for assessing social justice in health policy decisions alongside traditional measures of clinical risk-benefit and health equity.
Latest News
Medical Industry Can Reduce Its Carbon Footprint by Relying Less on Single-use Supplies, Lancet Commentary
BSPH News | February 2023
According to a recent Lancet commentary much of the healthcare industry’s reliance on disposable materials is born out of fear and efficiency, with minimal evidence to support the superiority of some disposable supplies over thoroughly sterilized reusable ones. The commentary—on which Maria Merritt, PhD, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, served as co-author with colleagues Jeremy Greene of the Berman Institute and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Caroline Skolnik of the MacLean Center and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine—was published October 15, 2022.
Leader on Gender and Global Development Joins the Department of International Health's Health Systems Program
BSPH News | January 2023
Anju Malhotra, PhD, MA, a recognized leader on gender equality, reproductive and adolescent health, was appointed professor of the practice in the Health Systems Program of the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Making Women and Girls Visible: Gender Data for Decision Making
Exemplars News | November 2022
To coincide with the International Family Planning Conference in Thailand, Exemplars News spoke with Anju Malhotra about how data can inform and accelerate gender equality.
Meet our ethics, equity, and gender faculty

Joseph Ali, JD, studies how to conduct global public health research and practice that maximally respects ethical values in an increasingly interconnected digital world.

Rosemary Morgan, PhD, MSc, studies the role of gender inequities on health, wellbeing, and public health interventions.
Featured Publications and Reports
Rehabilitation services must include support for sexual and gender-based violence survivors in Ukraine and other war- and conflict-affected countries
Health Policy and Planning | January 2023
Scoping 'sex' and 'gender' in rehabilitation: (Mis)representations and effects
International Journal for Equity in Health | December 2022
The burdens of participation: A mixed-methods study of the effects of a nutrition-sensitive agriculture program on women's time use in Malawi
World Development | December 2022
Intersectional insights into racism and health: Not just a question of identity
The Lancet | December 2022
"Younger women had more access to COVID-19 information": An intersectional analysis of factors influencing women and girls' access to COVID-19 information in Rohingya and host communities in Bangladesh
PLOS Global Public Health | December 2022