My research

I am trained as an anthropologist and work within the fields of public health and health promotion. I am interested in the methodological and theoretical aspects of intervention research, including the role of ethnography, participatory approaches, and social theory. I am leading a research unit dedicated to the development and evaluation of diabetes management and diabetes prevention interventions, and it is a key aim of ours to identify avenues of intervention that will reduce social inequalities in health.

Fellowship

During the fellowship I will explore how systems thinking may contribute to health promotion intervention research. I am particularly interested in the role of so-called syndemic interactions in the reproduction of health inequalities in a welfare state setting. The concept of syndemics is used to describe a situation where two or more diseases or other health-related conditions co-exist and interact in a population in ways that are closely linked to a context of social inequities. The concept has been applied in interdisciplinary examinations of co-occurring epidemics in a range of contexts, including the current COVID-19 pandemic. I find it to be underdeveloped, however, when it comes to interventions. Systems thinking combined with ethnography and participatory research may provide a way forward. In general, complexity science and systems thinking have come to play an increasing role in public health research and I hope to learn from IAS affiliated researchers who are at the forefront of this development.