Julianna Nemeth, PhD, MA

Dr. Nemeth is a health behavior and health promotion scientist dedicated to conducting the scientific work needed to improve health and reduce disparities for those impacted by violence and other traumatic exposures. Her research examines the social and contextual contributors to the disparate health behavior and health outcome sequelae evidenced in adolescent and adult populations with a high prevalence of gender-based violence exposure histories. As the leading cause of premature morbidity and mortality, she has increasingly focused her scholarship on smoking behavior and cessation within these populations due to cessation's high potential to reduce health disparities. Dr. Nemeth holds special interest in 1) tailoring health-based behavioral change interventions to best meet the unique needs of gender-based violence survivors in order to prevent disease onset and progression within the population and 2) illuminating policy and cultural change strategies to reduce sexual and intimate partner violence prevalence and its subsequent impact on health behavior. Informed by nearly two decades of community work in sexual and intimate partner gender-based violence prevention and crisis response, and trained as a feminist theorist, she also brings gender, culture, justice and community practice lenses to the study of health behavior and the promotion of health equity. Dr. Nemeth is the co-founder of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, a 501(c)3 organization recognized by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention and the Office on Violence Against Women as Ohio’s coalition addressing sexual violence response and its prevention.  Dr. Nemeth was awarded a K07 Career Development Grant (2017-2022) from the National Cancer Institute to develop a smoking cessation intervention for homeless youth using novel, optimization methodology (Multiphase Optimization STrategy).  In addition, she serves as an evaluator on a NIJ funded demonstration grant (2016-2019) awarded to the Ohio Domestic Violence Network; this work focuses on the creation, implementation and evaluation of the C.A.R.E. model, designed by ODVN to increase organizational capacity of domestic violence (DV) service agencies in Ohio to better meet the needs of survivors with disability resulting from mental health or brain injury.