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Prof Melissa Parker

Professor

United Kingdom

I am a member of the Department of Global Health and Development. My research builds on a multi-disciplinary training in Human Sciences and a DPhil (which combined methods and approaches current in social and biological anthropology) from Oxford University. Research questions typically emerge from extensive periods of ethnographic fieldwork, and engage with contemporary ideas in social, medical and political anthropology. Where appropriate, findings are used to both critique and enhance public health policies and practice. Topics investigated include: epidemic preparedness and response; mental health and healing in war zones; social and political legacies of mass forced displacement; medical humanitarianism, and biosocial approaches to the control of neglected tropical diseases in Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania.

In 2014, I established the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform with colleagues from Sierra Leone and the UK. This proved a useful model for enabling expertise across the social sciences to usefully inform the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and the Platform now engages with a broader range of issues through the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform. In 2020 and 2021, I contributed to the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours and the ethnicity subgroup of SAGE.

Affiliations

Department of Global Health and Development
Faculty of Public Health and Policy

Centres

Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response
Health in Humanitarian Crises Centre

Teaching

I teach on the modules 'Principles in Social Research', 'Conflict and Health, and 'Medical Anthropology and Public Health'.

I am also a tutor on the MSc 'Public Health for Development' and I have PhD students working on epidemic preparedness in refugee settings, maternal health, biosocial anthropology, neglected tropical diseases and the impact of Ebola on health systems in West Africa.

Research

Research
I have wide-ranging research interests in the anthropology of global health policies and medical humanitarianism. This involves contributing to the following multi-disciplinary, collaborative projects:
Pandemic preparedness: local and global concepts and practices in tackling disease threats in Africa
Centre for Public Authority and International Development
Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform
RECAP – Research capacity building and knowledge generation to support preparedness and response to humanitarian crises and epidemics.
Return, Responsibility and Reintegration in Central Africa: A multi-disciplinary exploration into endemic violence and social repair
Building resilient health systems: lessons from international, national and local emergency responses to the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone
Research Area
Conflict
Disease control
Ethics
Global Health
Health inequalities
Infectious disease policy
Outbreaks
Violence
Anthropology
Disease and Health Conditions
Mental health
Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)
Schistosomiasis
Zoonoses
Emerging infectious diseases
Country
Sierra Leone
Sudan
Tanzania
Uganda
United Kingdom
South Sudan
Region
Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)

Selected Publications

Epidemics and the Military: Responding to COVID-19 in Uganda.
PARKER, M; Baluku, M; Ozunga, BE; Okello, B; Kermundu, P; Akello, G; MacGregor, H; Leach, M; Allen, T;
2022
Social science & medicine (1982)
Legacies of humanitarian neglect: long term experiences of children who returned from the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.
PARKER, M; Fergus, CA; Brown, C; Atim, D; Ocitti, J; Atingo, J; Allen, T;
2021
Conflict and health
COVID-19, Public Authority and Enforcement.
PARKER, M; MacGregor, H; Akello, G;
2020
Medical anthropology
What Happened to Children Who Returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda?
Allen, T; Atingo, J; Atim, D; Ocitti, J; Brown, C; Torre, C; Fergus, CA; PARKER, M;
2020
Journal of Refugee Studies
Ebola, community engagement, and saving loved ones.
PARKER, M; Hanson, TM; Vandi, A; Babawo, LS; Allen, T;
2019
The Lancet
Ebola and Public Authority: Saving Loved Ones in Sierra Leone.
PARKER, M; Hanson, TM; Vandi, A; Babawo, LS; Allen, T;
2019
Medical anthropology
Epistemologies of Ebola: Reflections on the Experience of the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform
Martineau, F; Wilkinson, A; PARKER, M;
2017
Anthropological Quarterly
DEWORMING DELUSIONS? MASS DRUG ADMINISTRATION IN EAST AFRICAN SCHOOLS.
Allen, T; PARKER, M;
2016
Journal of biosocial science
NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES IN BIOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE.
PARKER, M; Polman, K; Allen, T;
2016
Journal of Biosocial Science
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