Public health, social justice and sexual violence prevention

I encourage you to check out the blog that Ashley Maier of the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force recently wrote on public health, social justice and sexual violence prevention.

Last October she presented a poster session titled “Public Health Just Doesn’t Get It”: The resistance to using a Public Health framework in social justice movements at the Oregon Public Health Association. For that session she referred to many of the concepts that I explored in the PreventConnect eLearning unit A Social Justice Model of Public Health: Integrating Prevention of Violence Against Women.

Ashley writes

I love public health because it stresses that this is a public problem.  It demonstrates that only equity and equality will lead to a truly healthy (in all senses of the word) population.  It also relies upon data and evidence.  Public Health is, in essence, a prevention champion.

Well said.