Joan Rosen Bloch, PhD is a tenured associate professor and Director of Global Health Initiatives in the College of Nursing and Health Professions. She has secondary faculty appointments in the School of Public Health and Nutrition Sciences. She received her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania where she was also awarded pre-doctoral and post-doctoral research fellowships.
Bloch’s mission in nursing is to promote optimal health for women and their families through practice, teaching and research. She was one of the pioneer Women’s Health Nurse Practitioners in Philadelphia and has practiced in a variety of settings: city clinics, HMOs, and private practice. Joining the faculty of Drexel University in 2005, she helped with the successful transition of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and colposcopy programs to Drexel University.
Bloch is respected as a researcher, educator, clinician and mentor to students, faculty and community partners. She is highly engaged locally, nationally and globally to ensure safe motherhood to all women caring for themselves, their children and families.
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Academic Distinctions
Distinguished Alumni, Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing
Visiting Professor, Ben Gurion University, Medical Informatics Research Center, The Department of Information Systems Engineering, Beer Sheva, Israel, 2016.
Faculty Fellowships
Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing
Louis and Bessie Stein Family Fellow for Exchanges with Israeli Universities
Professional Society
IRB Chair, The Public Health Management Corporation
American Academy of Nursing
Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health, executive committee
American Public Health Association
Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
Sigma Theta Tau, International
Research Interests
Bloch’s interests center on urban women’s health and health care systems. Using a life course perspective, Bloch’s program of translational research addresses the complex interplay of bio-behavioral, cultural and social factors contributing to adverse birth outcomes among socio-economically disadvantaged populations of mothers burdened by social and health inequities. Receiving NIH-funded training in social epidemiology and health service research, she applies cutting-edge data science to elucidate modifiable individual and neighborhood level factors and spatial patterns of preterm birth and high maternal morbidity burden. She pushes forward innovative data science and health informatics for novel approaches to improve maternal and infant health outcomes locally and globally.
She leads a translational perinatal health disparities research group, bringing together interdisciplinary academic and community partners for research and action. Her perspective as a nurse provides a useful disciplinary lens in reducing racial and ethnic perinatal health disparities in maternal and infant mortality and morbidity.
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Specialization
Urban women’s health, prenatal care, health disparities research, planning and implementing innovative health care delivery models, perinatal nurse health home visiting, maternal mortality and morbidity