Jennifer J. Prah, PhD, MSL, MSc, MA
Research Interests
Health Equity, Policy and Law
Health and Social Justice
Global Health Justice and Governance
Domestic Violence and Substance Abuse and Child Maltreatment
Intimate Partner and Gender-Based Violence and Abuse
Post-Separation Abuse
Intimate Partners and Children of Substance Abusers
Women’s and Children’s Health, Well-being and Flourishing
Political Economy of Health
Health Financing
Economic Evaluation
Cost Analyses
Health Equity, Mental Health & Aging
Research Areas
Health, Well-being, Flourishing, Women, Children
Dr. Prah is an internationally leading scientist and scholar of global and domestic health policy and public health. She conducts groundbreaking theoretical and empirical studies of health equity to address global and national health inequities, especially among women and children. Dr. Prah draws on her training in political economy, health policy, international relations, comparative social research and law to cross disciplines and reexamine the values and principles that underlie health policy and public health and apply these principles empirically. She created the pioneering Health Capability Paradigm, challenging existing approaches and illuminating optimal health policies and laws. She has developed a new empirical approach to evaluate public health programs and health policies as they measure up to that paradigm, including the Health Capability Profile.
Dr. Prah founded and directs the Health Equity and Policy Lab (HEPL), a mixed methods lab that studies public health and health and social policy issues such as the equity and efficiency of health system access, financing, resource allocation, policy reform, regulation, the social determinants of health, the health capability profile and domestic violence and abuse. Her research is conducted internationally and nationally, including work in Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Malaysia, Morocco, South Korea, South Africa, Taiwan, the United States, and Vietnam. Dr. Prah is the director of the Ortner Center on Violence and Abuse. Dr. Prah was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Board on Global Health; the Ethics Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee to the Director at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee to Evaluate The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). She has served on several international and national advisory and expert review committees, including for the World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health, Fulbright Program, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and institutions in East Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. She is the past Chair and Program Chair of the Ethics Special Primary Interest Group (SPIG) of the American Public Health Association (APHA). She was previously the Co-Director of the Yale-World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion, Policy and Research. She served previously at the World Bank as health economist and speechwriter to president James D. Wolfensohn and on the health and development satellite secretariat of WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland’s Transition Team. Dr. Prah has been an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Hastings Center Fellow, a Greenwall Faculty Scholar, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Donaghue Investigator, a Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies Fellow, and a Yale Public Voices Thought Leadership Fellow.
She received master’s degrees from Oxford University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and Yale University, and a doctoral degree from Harvard University.
Contact
Phone
office: 215.746.1330
fax: 215.573.2099
Address
3701 Locust Walk, Caster Building
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6214
About
Department(s)
Standing Faculty | Faculty | Center for High Impact Philanthropy | Research Centers & Special Projects | Ortner Center on Violence & AbuseProgram(s)
MSW | MSSP | NPL | PhDResearch Areas(s)
Children, Women, Family Well-BeingRelated Links
Publications
Books
Ruger JP. Health and Social Justice. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press; 2009.
Ruger JP. Global Health Justice and Governance. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press; 2018.
Articles
Ruger JP. “The Health Capability Paradigm and the Right to Health Care in the United States,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 2016; 37(4): 275-92.
Ruger JP, and Reiff, M. “A Checklist for the Conduct, Reporting and Appraisal of Micro-costing Studies in Health Care: Protocol Development,” JMIR Research Protocols, 2016; 5(4): e195.
Pallas S*, and Ruger JP.“Does Donor Proliferation in Development Aid for Health Affect Health Service Delivery and Population Health? Cross-Country Regression Analysis from 1995-2010,” Health Policy & Planning, 2017; 32(4): 493-503.
Pallas S*, and Ruger JP. “Effects of Donor Proliferation in Health Sector Aid on Health Program Performance: A Review and Conceptual Framework,” Social Science & Medicine, 2017; 175: 177-86.
Xu X, Yonkers KA, and Ruger JP. “Economic Evaluation of a Behavioral Intervention for Substance Use Treatment versus Brief Advice for Substance Use Treatment in Pregnant Women: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial,” BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 2017; 17: 83.
Loree A*, Garlepy AM, Ruger JP, and Yonkers KA. “Postpartum Contraceptive use and Rapid Repeat Pregnancy Among Women who use Substances,” Substance Use & Misuse, 2018; 53(1): 162-9.
Shawar YR*, and Ruger JP. “The World Bank and The The Right to Health: A Study of the Institution’s Rights-Based Discourse,” Global Health Governance, 2018; 7(1): 87-105.
*Denotes student or fellow author.