Anna Dowrick

I am an interdisciplinary social scientist, spanning medical sociology, medical anthropology and science and technology studies. My research explores how social injustice can be seen and acted upon through understanding experiences of health and illness, with a view to informing and improving the design of public services.

I joined the Department in 2021 to explore inequalities in people’s experiences of COVID-19. This work builds on other ongoing pandemic research projects, including studying healthcare workers' experiences of the pandemic with the UCL Rapid Research Appraisal and Evaluation Lab, and understanding how the pandemic has impacted the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse with IRISi and University of Bristol.

I am passionate about using qualitative methods to explore the affordances of different healthcare interventions for addressing social inequalities. I completed my PhD at Queen Mary University of London in 2018, in which I used ethnographic methods to examine the work of building sustainable connections between primary care teams and domestic abuse support services.

Since then I have contributed to a range of projects including: evaluating the challenges of using smart phones for asthma self-management; developing food voucher interventions to alleviate food poverty; and exploring the drivers and consequences of the rapid growth of high-street and DIY ‘injectable’ cosmetic practices (e.g. botox and dermal fillers) and possible policy solutions.

My independent research to date has been supported through a North Thames ARC Fellowship (2018) awarded by the National Institute of Health Research and a Mildred Blaxter Postdoctoral Fellowship (2019-2020) awarded by Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness. Project funding has been provided by the Medical Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council.

I am a tutor on the Oxford Qualitative Research Methods courses, and an Honorary Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. I am also a Board member of the scholar-led open access monograph publisher Mattering Press.