Anita Raj
Executive Director of Newcomb Institute | Tulane University
New Orleans, LA, UNITED STATES
Anita Raj is an expert in developmental psychology and public health with focus on gender equity in global health and development.
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Biography
Anita Raj is the Executive Director of the Newcomb Institute and the Nancy Reeves Dreux Endowed Chair in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. She is a research scientist trained in developmental psychology and public health with a multi-disciplinary research focus on gender equity in global health and development. She has led federal grant and foundation-funded studies on gender theory and measurement science, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and adolescent health, women’s empowerment, and gender inequalities, including gender-based violence and child marriage. She has approximately 300 peer-reviewed publications and is recognized as one of the most cited social scientists globally. She created and leads the EMERGE platform, which provides open access evidence-based measures on gender empowerment, built indicators on gender empowerment in national surveys for global tracking of SDG5: Building gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls and offers technical assistance to survey researchers and implementers working on gender empowerment. She also created and leads the Violence EXperiences (VEX) study, now operating in California and Louisiana, to assess state-wide data on experiences of violence, discrimination, and mental health, to support data-driven policy decision-making on these issues. She has served as an advisor to UN Women, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Blue Shield Foundation of California, and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation on gender equity and health as well as women’s empowerment issues, and she has been an invited speaker at the U.N. General Assembly on child, early, and forced marriage. She is also on the International Advisory Board for Lancet Global Health. She is the Co-Chair of the Committee on Gender Empowerment, Sociodemographic Development, and Population Dynamics for the National Academy of Sciences.
Areas of Expertise (13)
Gender Inequality in Relationships
Public Health
Data & Analytics
Mental Health
Reproductive Health
Global Health
Psychology
Gender Equity
Reproductive Rights
Discrimination
Measurement Science
Data Analysis
Gender diversity and inclusion in public policy
Education (3)
Mississippi College: BS
University of Georgia, Athens: PhD, MS, Psychology
Boston University of Public Health: Post-doctoral training, senior researcher
Media Appearances (4)
Study finds domestic violence cost Louisiana $10 billion in 2022
Verite News online
2024-04-18
Incidents of intimate partner violence cost Louisianans $10.1 billion in 2022, according to a new report from Tulane University’s Newcomb Institute. The authors of the report, released Tuesday (April 16), tallied the estimated costs of medical treatment, lost wages, criminal legal system costs and state-funded support programming for female victims and survivors of intimate partner violence.
More than half of Louisianans have experienced physical violence, study says
WWNO - Louisiana Considered online
2023-08-17
More than half of Louisiana residents have experienced physical violence in their lifetimes. One in five Louisianans has been threatened or harmed with a gun. Researchers at Tulane University have been studying the impacts of people’s experiences with violence in the Louisiana Study on Violence Experiences Across the Lifespan.
Junior League of New Orleans anniversary study on the status of women in New Orleans
New Orleans Magazine online
2023-10-16
As the Junior League of New Orleans (JLNO) prepares to commemorate 100 years of engagement among women in Greater New Orleans, the organization in partnership with the Newcomb Institute at Tulane University and its Connelly Alexander Institute for Data Science has commissioned a study on the state of women in New Orleans in time for Women’s History Month in March 2024.
Are New Orleans women thriving? The answer is complicated, Junior League report finds.
The Times-Picayune online
2024-08-14
Violent crime has affected fewer women's lives. Fewer teenage girls have given birth, and fewer infants have died, according to the report commissioned by the nonprofit Junior League of New Orleans in partnership with Tulane University.