Profile
Professor Judith Green
Professor of Sociology
Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health Room 51
Judith Green is a sociologist of health and medicine. She is currently Centre Director of the Wellcome Centre for Cultures & Environments of Health. She is module organiser for the MA Cultures & Environments of Health module Making, Using and Contesting Evidence,
Before joining the University of Exeter in 2020, Judith held posts in King's College London (1998-91; 2016-20), the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (2006-20), and London South Bank University (1993-96).
She was co-editor of the journal Critical Public Health, and co-authors the text book Qualitative Methods for Health Research (Sage). Current academic citizenship includes being a Trustee of the Foundation for Sociology of Health and Illness, and a member of the NIHR Public Health Research funding panel.
Recent publications include:
Lynch, R., Hanckel, B., & Green, J. (2022). The (failed) promise of multimorbidity: chronicity, biomedical categories, and public health. Critical Public Health, 32(4), 450-461.
Milton, S., Gilworth, G., Roposch, A., & Green, J. (2022). Feeling the clunk: Managing and attributing uncertainty in screening for developmental dysplasia of the hip in infancy. SSM-Qualitative Research in Health, 2, 100040.
Hanckel B, Milton S & Green J. (2020) Unruly bodies: resistance, (in)action and hysteresis in a public health intervention Social Theory & Health https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-020-00143-z
Polak L & Green J. (2020) Rethinking decision-making in the context of preventive medication: how taking statins becomes "the right thing to do". Social Science & Medicine 247 doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112797
Bell K & Green J (2020) Premature evaluation? Some cautionary thoughts on global pandemics and scholarly publishing Critical Public Health 30 doi/full/10.1080/09581596.2020.1769406
Research interests
Judith's research interests range across the sociology of health and medicine. She has published widely on risk, health services, public understanding of health and illness, and research methods, particularly for evaluation. Her recent and current interests focus on three themes:
1) The intersections of everyday mobility and health. Studies have included evaluations of policy interventions, such as the social and health impacts of free bus travel for children; explorations of how mobility modes (such as driving, walking or cycling) are socially constituted and transform; changing regimes of mobility; studies of he impact of new technologies such as telematics on how people move in the city; and quantitative studies of inequaliites in transport-related health outcomes.
2) Knowledge in public health practice, including questions of how evidence travels across sites and sectors; public understanding of public health issues; and the relationships between professionals, expertise, health publics and health governance.
3) Methodology. Particular interests include developing ways of integrating diverse sources of evidence, and developing methods for evaluation that provide tractable and transferable evidence. She is currently contributing to projects on case study research in public health, and on methods for synthesising qualitative data sets.
Research supervision
Judith has supervised 16 doctoral students to completion, and has contributed to thesis advisory groups for over 25 students.
Research students
Lucía Guerrero Rivière is working on debilitation in the context of post-conflict Colombia, focusing on narratives and practices of reconciliation as they relate to the body.
Rebecca Bista Johnson is working on the 'messy' and 'political' aspects of ME/CFS cultures.