Anna Dowrick

My research explores how social injustice can be seen and acted on through understanding experiences of health and illness. I am passionate about using qualitative methods to explore how healthcare interventions can address inequality, with a view to informing and improving the design of public services. I am an interdisciplinary social scientist, spanning the fields of medical sociology, medical anthropology and science and technology studies.

I am committed to understanding how improvements in healthcare can be implemented in ways that are equitable and sustainable. I work within the Cancer Group exploring how to deliver on the promise of new tests and technologies of cancer detection. I collaborate with the University of Bristol, exploring how to develop long-lasting connections between primary care teams and domestic violence & abuse support services in order to identify and help more people affected by abuse. 

I have been involved in a range of projects exploring impacts of pandemic. These include: the unfair burden of the pandemic on minorities; differences in experiences of Covid stigma across countries; how Long Covid has affected families; how vaccines have affected people living with Long Covid; and how the pandemic changed the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse.

Other projects I have worked on include: evaluating the challenges of using smart phones for asthma self-management; developing food voucher interventions to alleviate food poverty; and exploring the rapid growth of high-street and DIY ‘injectable’ cosmetic practices.

As a methodologist I am interested in anti-racist research approaches, cross-country qualitative comparative analysis, and how to minimise and address the rising impact of 'imposter' research participants. 

I have received grant funding from the National Institute of Health Research, the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness, 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, where I undertook my PhD between 2015-18. I am also a Board member and Editor at the scholar-led open access monograph publisher Mattering Press.