Melissa Dichter, PhD, MSW, is a Professor, Department of Social Work, Temple University Barnett College of Public Health. She is a core investigator at the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in health services research at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion. Dichter earned her PhD in social welfare and MSW in clinical social work from the University of Pennsylvania. Dichter’s research focuses on individuals’, especially women military veterans and gender and sexual minority populations, experiences with and system responses to intimate partner violence (IPV). Her work has examined healthcare system identification of and response to patient experience with IPV; IPV survivor experiences with criminal legal system intervention; health and social impacts of IPV experience; IPV survivor engagement in social services, social relationships, and advocacy; and IPV experiences of women military veterans.

Sherief Ibrahim, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Instruction, Department of Health Services Administration and Policy, Temple University Barnett College of Public Health. Ibrahim is also the Director of the MPH in Health Policy and Management program at Temple. Prior to Temple, Ibrahim worked as a police officer, detective, and bomb technician. He earned his JD from the John F. Kennedy School of Law and MPH from Temple University. Ibrahim has delivered emergency preparedness training to many audiences and participated in numerous disaster training exercises, including earthquake response to simulated hostage critical incidents. His research interests focus on firearm violence and suicide prevention.

Melody Slashinski, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Instruction, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Temple University Barnett College of Public Health. Prior to joining Temple, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Slashinski was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine and earned her doctorate from the University of Texas School of Public Health. Slashinski is a qualitative methodologist with more than two decades of experience leading, collaborating, or consulting on national and international qualitative research. Her primary research areas include children’s mental health services utilization; ethical, social, and cultural issues surrounding genomics and microbiomics; and the prison-industrial complex.

Alyssa Johnston, MPH is a Senior Research Associate Department of Health Services Administration and Policy, Temple University Barnett College of Public Health.  Johnston serves as the Project Manager for this study. She works on a variety of public health projects and holds a BA from Franklin & Marshall College and an MPH from the University of Pittsburgh.

Hunter Gashi, BS is a Research Assistant in the Department of Health Services Administration and Policy, Temple University Barnett College of Public Health. Gashi is pursuing his MPH at Drexel University.

Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that builds healthier communities through partnerships with government, foundations, businesses and community-based organizations.

Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) serves as the justice planning and policymaking agency for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) is a public research university in Indiana, Pennsylvania. IUP conducted the previous quantitative study focusing on Act 79 in Pennsylvania.