Ofra Anson is a full professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences in the
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in the southern part of Israel. Her
main research interests are health inequalities, mainly social class and
gender, socialization of health professionals, and religion and health.
Recently she is involved in multi-disciplinary research of stress. She
has published three books, and some seventy articles in referee journals
and in edited volumes.
Rose Barbour is a medical sociologist whose research has spanned both
health and social care. She is Professor of Health and Social care in
the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Dundee and is a
past Treasurer and Committee member of the British Sociological
Association’s Medical Sociology Group. Current work includes research
into the health care needs of asylum seekers and the experiences of
people with dysarthria and their carers. Recent research has looked at
how people make decisions about medication in the context of
prescription charges; maternal mental health needs and child protection;
obesity management in primary care; sub-fertile couples’ experiences of
service provision and GPs’ views of sickness certification. In many of
these projects she has collaborated with clinical colleagues and
practitioners from a variety of disciplines. Alongside her involvement
in health services research, however, she has continued to use her
empirical data to explore theoretical issues surrounding identity and
agency. Previous work has covered professional socialization for social
work and professional responses to HIV/AIDS. The latter resulted in a
collection, Meddling with Mythology: AIDS and the Social Construction of
Knowledge, co-edited with Guro Huby (Routledge, 1998). Rose has a
particular interest in strengthening the rigour of qualitative methods
and has published in a wide range of journals, including J of Health
Services Research & Policy; J of Evaluation in Clinical Practice,
British Medical Journal, Family Practice and Qualitative Health Research.
She co-edited Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and
Practice with Jenny Kitzinger (Sage, 1999) and is currently writing a
single authored book on Focus Groups for Sage (to be published in
2005). Rose has also developed and run a series of qualitative methods
workshops throughout the UK and in the US and Sweden for a variety of
audiences, including postgraduate students, senior colleagues,
practitioners and clinicians.
Michèle Baumann is an ass. Professor HDR in health sociology at the
University of Luxembourg. Her research priorities concern the effects of
social inequalities in gaining health care and social resources. She is
the Scientific Director of three major projects (1) family repercussions
for patients suffering from cerebral stroke and satisfaction care
(National project) (2) quality of live of students in Europe with
partner universities in Belgium, France, Romania and Portugal (3) mental
health and employability of offenders (European Social Fund project).
She is also evaluator for social and health policies. Previously, she
was at the Public Health School in the Faculty of Medicine at the
University of Nancy (France 1994-2004).
Piet Bracke (1961) lectures sociology and medical
sociology at several faculties at Ghent University. He got a PhD in
sociology (Ghent University, 1997) with a dissertation on gender
differences in depression. His current research interests are
psycho-social rehabilitation and mental health services research, the
social epidemiology of common mental disorders, gender and family
relations, and the causes and consequences of marital dissolution. He is
a former editor in chief of the Flemish Journal of Sociology (Tijdschrift
voor Sociologie).
Espen Dahl has a Ph.D in sociology from 1994, and currently holds a
postion as a researcher at Research Group for Inclusive Welfare. He also has a part-time position at Norwegian Services
Research Centre.
His main research interests are health inequality research, studies in
social policy in a comparative perspective – in particular activation
policies and activation schemes, and research on social assistance
dynamics and exclusion processes.
Rudolf Forster is based at the Institute of
Sociology, University of Vienna, and a collaborator with the Ludwig
Boltzmann Institute for the Sociology of Health and Medicine. His
current research interests are: social movements in health (especially
self-help groups); patient and public involvement; and health care
system analysis. Since 1999 he is chair of the Health and Medical
Sociology-Group of the Austrian Sociological Association.
Studies in sociology and psychology (University of Mannheim), diploma in
sociology 1984. Since 1998 head of the Medical Sociology Unit at
Hannover Medical School, since 2003 also provisional director of the
department of General Medicine.
The research topics refer to the role of social and psychological
factors in the development and course of (especially malignant)
diseases, social inequality of the distribution of health and diseases,
and the utilization of health care and empirical research methods.
The current research projects are on the role of life changes in the
course of breast cancer over a 10-years period, on the quality of care
in cancer patients, on life chances after the surgery of congenital
heart diseases and on the analyses of health inequalities using
secondary data.
Guido Giarelli (1958), graduated with full marks and honour at the
Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Bologna in 1983; he
got a Ph.D. in Medical Sociology at the University College London in
1994.
He has worked for many years in Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique,
Senegal) and subsequently in Brasil, USA, Great Britain, Sweden and
Albania, carrying out research, consultancy and training work for
Governments, various NGOs and UNICEF.
He currently teaches Social and Cultural Anthropology, Comparative
Medical Systems and Social and Health Policy at the University of
Bologna. He is the co-ordinator of the Master in “Quality Evaluation of
Health Care Services” of the University of Bologna.
His last publications are about comparative medical systems (Sistemi
sanitari. Per una teoria sociologica comparata, Franco Angeli, Milano,
1998) and about the impact of reforms on health care systems (Il
malessere della medicina, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2003).
His main research interests are currently about comparative medical
systems, health care reforms, complementary/alternative and integrated
medicine in post-industrial societies.
He is one of the founders and the first President of the Italian Society
for the Sociology of Health (S.I.S.S.).
Olaf von dem Knesebeck, PhD, Professor of Medical
Sociology, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf. Research
interests: social epidemiology, sociology of aging, evaluation research
in the health care sector, sociological aspects of clinical decision
making.
Mall Leinsalu is a medical sociologist from the National Institute for
Health Development in Tallinn, Estonia. Her work focuses on social
inequalities in health and mortality in Estonia and in other new EU
member states. Presently she is with the Stockholm Centre on Health of
Societies in Transition (SCOHOST) at Södertörns högskola, University
College of South Stockholm.
Professor of Medical Sociology. Main topics of interest relate to the
quality of life in elderly (the role of subjective health, social
network, social support), quality of life in cancer patients, illness
behaviours and gender-related differences in health status. Extensive
didactic activity, teaching students of medicine, dentistry, public
health and nursing on relevant topics. Head of Chair of Epidemiology and
Preventive Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College Head of
Department of Medical Sociology, Chair of Epidemiology and Preventive
Medicine.
