Departmental Affiliations
Lori Heise, PhD, is an expert on gender equity, social change, women’s economic and social empowerment, and preventing violence against women and children in the family.
Research Interests
gender and health; sexual & reproductive health and rights; prevention of HIV; violence against women; social determinants of heath; social norms; primary prevention; impact evaluation; transactional sex; women's economic empowerment; gender inequality; implementation science.
Additional Links
Experiences & Accomplishments
Lori Heise is a Professor of Gender, Violence and Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH), with a joint appointment in the School of Nursing. She has over 30 years of experience working in the areas of gender equity, social change and women’s economic and social empowerment. She is an internationally recognized expert on the causes and consequences of violence against women and was a Co-investigator on “What Works to Prevent Violence,” a 6 year, multi-million-dollar project to reduce gender-based violence (GBV) in low and middle-income countries. Her current research focuses on preventing violence against women and children in the family, transforming gender norms, and serving as Technical Director of the Prevention Collaborative, a new global initiative designed to support evidence based GBV prevention programming in the Global South.
Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she was a Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where she served as Research Director of STRIVE, a 6 country research collaboration dedicated to studying the structural drivers of HIV, including gender inequalities, stigma and criminalization, lack of livelihood options and alcohol use and harmful drinking norms. Earlier in her career she co-founded and directed two civil society organizations, one focused on SRHR and another on Women's HIV prevention needs.
Honors & Awards
2019. Elsevier Atlas Award, showcasing a “single article” from 2500 journals with the potential to “significantly impact people’s lives around the world or has already done so”
2008 Omololu Falobi Memorial Award for Excellence in HIV Prevention Research and Community Advocacy
2008 PATH Award for Excellence in Mentorship, Selected among 800 PATH employees
2006 Recognized as one of the “50 women who made a difference,” Ms Magazine
2003 Inaugural recipient of the American Social Health Association (ASHA) award for policy and advocacy
Select Publications
Selected peer reviewed publications:
Lori Heise, Margaret E Greene, Neisha Opper, Maria Stavropoulou, Caroline Harper, Marcos Nascimento, Debrework Zewdie. Gender Inequality and Restrictive Gender Norms: Framing the Challenges to Health. The Lancet. 2019; 393:2440-54.
Stern E, Heise L, McClean L. "The ‘Doing’ and ‘Undoing’ of Male Household Decision-Making and Economic Authority in Rwanda and its Implications for Gender Transformative Programming" Culture, Health and Sexuality. 01 Dec 2017. doi: 10.1080/13691058.2017.1404642.
Buller AM, Peterman A, Ranganathan M, Bleile A, Hidrobo M, Heise L. A mixed methods review of cash transfers and intimate partner violence in low and middle-income countries. World Bank Research Observer (2018) 33(2):1-41.
Beniamino Cislaghi, Lori Heise. 2019. Gender norms and social norms: differences, similarities and why they matter in prevention science. Sociology of Health and Illness 42(2): 1-16. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.13008
Heise L and Kotsadam A. Exploring cross-national and multi-level correlates of partner violence: A test of the gender hypothesis. Lancet Global Health. 2015 Jun: 3(6):e332-40.