Dr. Jacoby combines nursing and public health perspectives in her approach to injury science and urban health research. As a nurse in a Philadelphia ICU, Dr. Jacoby was witness to the profound trauma and violence that impacted the lives of hospitalized patients and their families. This inspired her to study the experience of injured people and the etiologies of racial and ethnic disparities in trauma outcomes.
Social Justice
Achieving social justice requires that we acknowledge and respond to our collective and often discriminatory histories and practices in healthcare and public health. Dr. Jacoby’s research on injury and urban health focuses on the structural and social origins of the disparities we see every day and across the country in violence victimization, as well profound inequities in how opportunities for injury recovery, restoration, and health are constructed in American cities and healthcare systems.
Teaching
Dr. Jacoby currently teaches Sociocultural Influences on Health and is seminar faculty in Psychological and Social Diversity in Health and Wellness. She lectures across the curriculum in the application of mixed methods, critical theory and social epidemiology in nursing research and practice.
Research
A Senior Scholar at the Penn Injury Science Center, Dr. Jacoby’s research is focused on identifying why injuries occur where they do in urban spaces, the experiences of injured people as they recover in their homes and communities, and how we might support health systems and urban environments to enhance safety and improve injury outcomes. Her current research focuses on identifying the potential of mobile technology to better elicit patient-reported long-term outcomes after trauma in effort to identify pathways for a stronger continuum of health and social care after hospitalization. Dr. Jacoby’s research is also focused on the social and health consequences of intersections between emergency medical interventions and law enforcement activities in response to violence.
Clinical Practice
Dr. Jacoby is a board-certified Acute Care Nurse Practitioner with a background in trauma and surgical intensive care nursing.
Dr. Jacoby is recipient of a 2024 Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.