Focus Areas
Recognizing that health equity and racial justice are essential to community safety and well-being, RTI’s Center for Community Safety and Crime Prevention includes a strong focus on identifying, understanding and eliminating disparities in violence, health care access, and other outcomes. RTI researchers examine issues of equity, health and safety with marginalized communities, including men of color, individuals involved with the legal system and their families, women in tribal communities, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Staff apply a variety of innovative research methods to elicit the insights of individuals directly affected by health disparities and racial inequity, including qualitative interviews and cutting-edge quantitative methods.
Project Highlight
Understanding and Improving Medicaid Use among Women on Probation since Affordable Care Act Implementation
This mixed-methods study investigates health literacy and other factors that influence health care access and utilization among women involved with the probation system. Knowledge gained through this study is being used to develop a health-promotion intervention for women with legal-system involvement who suffer from chronic health conditions.
Project Highlight
Supporting Male Survivors of Violence
Building on the awareness that existing systems and service providers do not have the cultural competency and capacity to effectively treat male survivors of violence, this project supports the Supporting Male Survivors of Violence Initiative. RTI is the national cross-site evaluator for the 12 demonstration sites funded as part of this initiative to develop or expand access to culturally relevant services for boys and young men of color who have been harmed by violence.
Project Highlight
Post-incarceration Partner Violence
The Post-Incarceration Partner Violence Study explores how experiences in the legal system might shape high observed rates of intimate partner violence among returning prisoners and their partners. This project addresses Partner Violence After Reentry from Prison by contextualizing the problem, and also explores Partner Violence Help-Seeking in Coupled Affected by Incarceration. Findings suggest that experiences of imprisonment and release shape the form, timing and interpretation of abuse, and that the developmental timing and accumulation of system exposure over the life course predicts the use of violence against a partner after return from prison.
Meet the Experts
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Stephanie Hawkins
Stephanie Hawkins
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Megan Comfort
Megan Comfort
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Elizabeth Tibaduiza
Elizabeth Tibaduiza
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La Sonya (Sonya) A. Goode
La Sonya (Sonya) A. Goode
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Pamela Spain
Pamela Spain
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Katherine Karriker-Jaffe
Katherine Karriker-Jaffe
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Kelle Barrick
