Sara F. Jacoby, MPH, MSN, PhD

Assistant Professor of Nursing

Dr. Jacoby combines nursing and public health perspectives in her approach to injury science and urban health research. As a nurse in a Philadelphia ICU, Dr. Jacoby was witness to the profound trauma and violence that impacted the lives of hospitalized patients and their families. This inspired her to study the experience of injured people and the etiologies of racial and ethnic disparities in trauma outcomes.

Cities are dynamic places that can promote health and at the same time be the foundation for profound health inequalities. My research focuses on how injury risks and outcomes intersect with the social and built conditions of urban environments.

Education

PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 2015
MSN, University of Pennsylvania, 2008
BSN, University of Pennsylvania, 2005
MPH, Columbia University, 2002
BA, Rutgers University, 1998

Social Justice

Achieving social justice requires that we acknowledge and respond to our collective and often discriminatory histories and practices in healthcare and public health. Dr. Jacoby’s research on injury and urban health focuses on the structural and social origins of the disparities we see every day and across the country in violence victimization, as well profound inequities in how opportunities for injury recovery, restoration, and health are constructed in American cities and healthcare systems.

Teaching

Dr. Jacoby currently teaches Sociocultural Influences on Health and is seminar faculty in Psychological and Social Diversity in Health and Wellness. She lectures across the curriculum in the application of mixed methods, critical theory and social epidemiology in nursing research and practice.

Research

A Senior Scholar at the Penn Injury Science Center, Dr. Jacoby’s research is focused on identifying why injuries occur where they do in urban spaces, the experiences of injured people as they recover in their homes and communities, and how we might support health systems and urban environments to enhance safety and improve injury outcomes. Her current research focuses on identifying the potential of mobile technology to better elicit patient-reported long-term outcomes after trauma in effort to identify pathways for a stronger continuum of health and social care after hospitalization. Dr. Jacoby’s research is also focused on the social and health consequences of intersections between emergency medical interventions and law enforcement activities in response to violence.

Clinical Practice

Dr. Jacoby is a board-certified Acute Care Nurse Practitioner with a background in trauma and surgical intensive care nursing.

Selected Career Highlights

2019, Early Career Reviewer, Center for Scientific Review, National Institutes of Health
2019, Rising Star Research Award, Eastern Nursing Reseach Society
2017, Senior Fellow, Leonard David Institute for Health Economics
2017, Senior Fellow, Center for Public Health Initiatives
2015, Fellow, CDC Foundation, Penn Injury Science Center
2015, Henry O. Thompson Prize in Ethics

Selected Publications

Kondo, M., Morrison, C.N., Jacoby, S.F., Elliot, L., Poche, A.J., Theall, K.P., & Branas, C.C. (in press). Blight abatement of vacant land and crime in New Orleans.Public Health Reports.
Kondo, M., Jacoby, S.F., & South, E. (in press). Does spending time outdoors reduce stress? A review of real-time stress response to outdoor environments. Health and Place.
Jacoby, S.F., Rich, J., Webster, J., & Richmond, T.S. (in press). “Sharing things with people that I don’t even know”: Help-seeking for psychological symptoms in injured Black men in Philadelphia. Ethnicity & Health.
Jacoby, S.F., Kollar, L.M., Ridgeway, G., & Sumner, S.S. (2018). Health system and law enforcement synergies for injury surveillance, control, and prevention: A scoping review. Injury Prevention, 24(4): 305-311.
Morrison, C.N., Ukert, B.D., Palumbo, A.J., Dong, B., Jacoby, S.F., & Wiebe, D. J. (2018). Assaults on days of campaign rallies during the 2016 US presidential election.Epidemiology. DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000821
Jacoby, S.F., Richmond, T.S., Holena, D.N., & Kaufman, E.J. (2018). A safe haven for the injured? Urban trauma care at the intersection of healthcare, law enforcement, and race. Social Science and Medicine. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.05.037.
Jacoby, S.F., Dong, B., Beard, J.H., Wiebe, D.J., & Morrison, C.N. (2018). The enduring impact of historical and structural racism on urban violence in Philadelphia.Social Science and Medicine. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.05.038.
Kaufman, E., Jacoby, S.F., Sharoky, C.E., Carr, B.G., Delgado, M.K., Reilly, P.M., & Holena D. (2017). Patient characteristics and temporal trends in police transport of blunt trauma patients: A multicenter retrospective cohort study. Prehosptital Emergency Care. doi: 10.1080/10903127.2017.1332127. [Epub ahead of print]
Jacoby, S F. (2017). The insight and challenge of reflexive practice in an ethnographic study of black traumatically injured patients in Philadelphia. Nursing Inquiry, 24(3).
Morrison, C.N., Jacoby, S.F., Dong, B., Delgado, M.K., & Wiebe, D. (2017). Ridesharing and motor vehicle crashes in four U.S. cities: An interrupted time series analysis. American Journal of Epidemiology. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwx233. [Epub ahead of print]