Violence against women (VAW) is highly prevalent and damages the health and wellbeing of women and their children. Health care has a crucial role in responding to VAW as part of a coordinated multi-sector response. Women may access the health system at multiple entry points (e.g. antenatal care, family planning, HIV testing and counselling, post abortion care) that provide opportunities for them to disclose abuse safely and access support and referrals for themselves and their children. Most of the evidence on integrating VAW interventions in healthcare systems is from the global north. There is an urgent need to develop and evaluate interventions in low and middle income countries (LMIC) to enhance our understanding of how they work in different countries and healthcare contexts, with a view to scaling up promising interventions.

HERA (Healthcare Responding to Violence and Abuse) aims to:

• Understand how healthcare systems in LMIC can integrate and evaluate interventions for VAW that link with community organisations, and ultimately ensure better outcomes for women and children.
• Engage a range of key stakeholders in intervention development and evaluation with a view to Influencing  policies and programmes on VAW
• Develop a global multi-disciplinary network of researchers and service providers who are committed to implementing and testing interventions for violence against women in health care settings to build research capacity and exchange knowledge.

HERA - Healthcare Responding to Violence and Abuse. Funded by two research grants. The Medical Research Council (MRC) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Foundation Award 2017 to 2019 & the NIHR Global Health Research Group Award 2018 to 2022.