Welcome to the Gender Violence & Health Centre

Who are we?

The connections between violence and women’s health have increasingly been recognised in the medical and public health fields, and by women’s rights and human rights communities. Yet globally the scale of the response to gender- based violence is woefully inadequate.

Launched in 2006, the Gender, Violence and Health Centre is a multi- disciplinary cross-departmental research group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, that works with partners around the world to conduct action-oriented, intervention based research on gender-based violence and health.

The Centre’s overall aim is to improve the health and well being of women and girls through action-oriented research on the extent, cause and consequences of gender-based violence and effective strategies for change.

What do we do?

GVHC conducts applied research in diverse settings around the world. This document provides brief summaries of our current projects.

Each project is action-oriented. Our research questions are guided by current policy debates on violence against women, and by the needs of our international and local partners. Many of our projects are synergistic, with the insights gained from the overall body of research projects adding up to more than its individual components.

Staff of GVHC also routinely conduct training and capacity building work. This training spans the formal supervision of PhD and masters students, to running short courses and seminars on methods to research violence, and training linked to the findings of our research.

What makes us different?

Our research focuses on collecting evidence to inform the development of interventions to address and respond to different forms of gender-based violence around the world.

We are committed to using our research to explore the implications of gender-based violence for health and development activities. We generally work in partnership with non-governmental organisations, local research organizations and other agencies, often partnering wither service and advocacy organisations to ensure that our research in grounded, and informs change. Several of these partnerships are long-standing, with staff at GVHC spending extended periods of time based in the partner organisation, and staff from overseas spending time based at LSHTM.