Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Anaise Williams, PhD ’23, MPH researches gender equity and gender-based violence prevention with a focus on norms and economic empowerment.
Research Interests
Gender norms, gender equity, gender-based violence, reproductive health, and economic empowerment
Experiences & Accomplishments
Anaise Williams is an Assistant Scientist in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. With an interdisciplinary background, her research portfolio addresses the topic areas of gender-based violence prevention, gender norms, women’s economic empowerment, reproductive health, gender equity, and social change. Bringing specialized skills in survey design, psychometric testing, randomized controlled trials, and multilevel modeling, she has engaged in health promotion of underserved populations both domestically and internationally, with a special focus on women and girls.
Select Publications
Williams A, Wamue-Ngare G, Malelu-Gitau A, Heise L, Glass N, Edeh C, Aiura Y, Gitahi T, Rakuomi J, & Decker MR. (2025). A systematic review of microfinance interventions and violence against women: results from low-and middle-income contexts. BMJ Global Health, 10(4).
Williams A, Heise L, Perrin N, Stuart C, & Decker MR (2024). Does going against the norm on women’s economic participation increase intimate partner violence risk? A cross-sectional, multi-national study. Global Health Research and Policy, 9(1), 53.
Williams, A., Stuart, C., Perrin, N., Heise, L., Anglewicz, P., & Decker, M. R. (2025). Who are the “vanguard” women? Strategies for identifying women going against economic participation norms across 49 low-and middle-income countries. World Development, 186, 106846.
Williams A, Wood S, Thiongo M, Gichangi P, Devoto B, Bevilacqua K, & Decker MR. (2025). Intimate partner violence help-seeking norms: scale reliability and cross-sectional multilevel associations with intimate partner violence among youth in Nairobi, Kenya. BMJ open, 15(1), e080699.
Williams A, Wood SN, Stuart HC, Wamue-Ngare G, Thiongo M, Gichangi P, and Decker MR. Gendered time use during COVID-19 among adolescents and young adults in Nairobi, Kenya. eClinicalMedicine 2022; 49 (101479).