Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion

Profile

Melissa E. Dichter, PhD, MSW, CHERP COIN Investigator, is Associate Professor in the School of Social Work, College of Public Health at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Dichter completed an HSR Career Development Award and now leads and collaborates on VA-funded Investigator Initiated Research and serves as a mentor for VA-funded trainees and early-career investigators. 

Dr. Dichter's research focuses on individuals' 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. Dr. Dichter's work has also focused on identifying and meeting the health and psychosocial needs of women military veterans and of gender and sexual minority populations. Dr. Dichter has methodological expertise in primary data collection, mixed methods and qualitative research methods, and community-engaged research.

Dr. Dichter earned her PhD in Social Welfare and Master in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania, and her BA in Child Development from Tufts University. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in health services research at the VA Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) and the Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.