Center for Global Women's Health

The Center for Global Women's Health (CGWH) is an interdisciplinary collection of faculty and students who collaborate on women’s health scholarship, education, and clinical practice relevant to global issues. Faculty practice and programs of research use a health equity framework with a focus on social justice.

Center members with scholarly and nursing practice interests aligned with the Center Mission and Vision (below) serve as core faculty. Faculty programs of research reside in three domains: Safety from Violence and Harm; Equity, Empowerment, and Advocacy; and Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Faculty work to promote the health and well-being of women and girls, recognizing that as the health of women goes, so goes the health of the world

Penn Nursing Professor Marilyn (Lynn) Sommers, PhD, RN, FAAN, is Director of the Center for Global Women’s Health. Her research focuses on risk-taking, injury, and violence in vulnerable populations.  Dr. Sommers has changed the paradigm of the forensic sexual assault examination with her finding that skin injury prevalence after rape is higher in women with light as compared to dark skin, regardless of race/ethnicity. This work has illuminated new areas of science for explicating the role of injury in women after sexual assault.

Mission

To maximize health and empower women and girls around the globe

Vision

CGWH serves as the focal point for the generation and translation of research that promotes the health of women and girls in Philadelphia, in the U.S., and around the globe. It serves as a community of scholars that seeks to participate with women and girls about issues related to health, while:

• Including problems and topics that have high priority from an individual, community, regional, and global perspective
• Exploring the role of urban environments and their contribution to health vulnerability for women and girls
• Designing and participating in studies and programmatic initiatives that enhance the health of women and girls and that of families, communities, and nations
• Respecting the role of intergenerational, social, biological, cultural, and psychological factors related to health with a particular focus on health-related outcomes as women age
• Empowering women to lead in their homes as well as in their institutions, communities, and nations
• Providing knowledge and skills to women and girls to promote gender equity
• Recognizing the critical role or women as mothers and women and girls as care providers
• Translating and tailoring programs from one community to another to promote health
  

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