Cohn, Simon

Dr Simon Cohn - Senior University Lecturer (non-clinical)

Leading the Unit's Social Science Group and the Social Analysis of Health Network

I am a medical anthropologist who has been appointed by the Primary Care Research Unit to strengthen applied research initiatives that draw on social theories and mixed methods. I oversee social science components in a number of different reserach programmes within and beyond the Unit, and am a member of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit.

I teach an introductory course for medical students called the Social Context of Health and Illness and am currently supevising the following PhD students: Martin Atela, on the healthcare policies and practices of participation in Kenya; Kelvin Chan, on the way policies construct target populations, which often have a range of unintended consequences, Erica Borgstrom, on the concept of choice in current end of life care, Nadine Levin on definitions of health and normal within a new branch of biotechnology, and Ben Belek on the nature of emotions in the social life of people with autism.

In the past, I have used a range of qualitative techniques to investigate ideas of health amongst patients and medical professionals – particularly in relation to chronic conditions. I have published work on diabetes, ME/chronic fatigue, gulf war syndrome, and the impact of neuroscience in psychiatry. I am also interested in social studies of science and the anthropology of knowledge, and have contributed to related option courses in the Department of Social Anthropology. In my new post I have increasingly become interested in issues of methodology - particularly how qualitative approaches can be extended to offer rich and genuine insights for improving health care delivery.If you are interested in any area to do with qualitative research in health settings, interdisciplinary approaches to investigate illnesses and their treatment, or medical anthropology in particular, do not hesitate to contact me.

I am currently a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute's Medical Committee, a College Lecturer at Magdalene College and a Bye-Fellow at Girton College and am Director of Studies in Social Anthropology at both institutions.

I am also organising the third ESRC Sociology of Diagnosis one-day workshop for this autumn.

Dr Simon Cohn
Medical Anthropologist
Senior University Lecturer
Institute of Public Health, Cambridge University Forvie Site Cambridge CB2 OSR
01223 330338

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Indicative Publications

Borgstrom, E., Barclay, S., & Cohn, S. (2013). Constructing denial as a disease object: Accounts by medical students meeting dying patients. Sociology of Health and Illness, 35(3), 391-404.

Cohn, S., Clinch, M., Bunn, C., & Stronge, P. (2013). Entangled complexity: why complex interventions are just not complicated enough.. J Health Serv Res Policy, 18(1), 40-43. doi:10.1258/jhsrp.2012.012036

Cohn, S., Fritz, Z. B., Frankau, J. M., Laroche, C. M., & Fuld, J. P. (2013). Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation orders in acute medical settings: a qualitative study.. QJM, 106(2), 165-177. doi:10.1093/qjmed/hcs222

Cohn, S. (2012). Disrupting Images: Neuroscientific Representations in the Lives of Psychiatric Patients. In S. Choudhury, & J. Slaby (Eds.), Critical Neuroscience (pp. 179-194). Malden, MA & Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Borgstrom, E., Cohn, S., & Barclay, S. (2010). Medical professionalism: conflicting values for tomorrow's doctors.. J Gen Intern Med, 25(12), 1330-1336. doi:10.1007/s11606-010-1485-8

Cohn, S. (2010). Picturing the Brain Inside, Revealing the Illness Outside: A Comparison of Different Meanings Attributed to Brain Scans by Scientists and PatientsTechnologized Images, Technologized Bodies. In J. Edwards, P. Harvey, & P. Wade (Eds.), Technologized Images, Technologized Bodies (pp. 65-84). New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books.

Cohn, S. (2009). Christmas 2009: Professional matters Where have all the hospital flowers gone?. BRIT MED J, 339, . doi:10.1136/bmj.b5406

Cohn, S., Dyson, C., & Wessely, S. (2008). Early accounts of Gulf War illness and the construction of narratives in UK service personnel.. Soc Sci Med, 67(11), 1641-1649. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.09.004

Cohn, S. (2008). Petty Cash and the Neuroscientific Mapping of Pleasure. Biosocieties, 3, 151-163. doi:10.1017/S174585520800608X

Cohn, S. (2008). Making objective facts from intimate relations: the case of neuroscience and its entanglements with volunteers. HIST HUM SCI, 21(4), 86-103. doi:10.1177/0952695108095513

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The Primary Care Unit

Dr Simon Cohn - Senior University Lecturer (non-clinical)

Leading the Unit's Social Science Group and the Social Analysis of Health Network