Imperial College London

DrKirstenBell

Faculty of MedicineSchool of Public Health

Senior Research Fellow in Anthropology
 
 
 
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Contact

 

k.bell

 
 
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Location

 

Sir Alexander Fleming BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Publication Type
Year
to

73 results found

Herrick C, Bell K, 2024, The social life of natural experiments in epidemiology and public health., Sociol Health Illn, Vol: 46, Pages: 276-294

Over the twentieth century, the concept of the natural experiment has become increasingly prominent across a variety of disciplines, albeit most consequentially in epidemiology and public health. Drawing on an analysis of the scientific and medical literature, we explore the social life of the natural experiment, tracing its changing use, meaning and uptake to better understand the work done by the concept. We demonstrate how the natural experiment became central to the identity of post-war epidemiology as the discipline professionalised, turned its attention to the prevention of chronic disease and took centre stage in the field of public health. We then turn to its growing significance amid the rise of evidence-based medicine, and the new meanings natural experiments came to take on in the context of concerns about policy and evidence. Finally, we turn to the newest iteration of the natural experiment in the COVID-19 era, which saw an explosion of studies drawing on the term, albeit in ways that reveal more about the underlying politics of health than the method itself. Throughout, we illustrate that the concept of the natural experiment has always been fundamentally social and political and tied to disciplinary claims-making about evidence and what should count as such.

Journal article

Herrick C, Bell K, 2022, Epidemic confusions: On irony and decolonisation in global health, GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 17, Pages: 1467-1478, ISSN: 1744-1692

Journal article

Bell K, Kingori P, Mills D, 2022, Scholarly Publishing, Boundary Processes, and the Problem of Fake Peer Reviews, SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY & HUMAN VALUES, ISSN: 0162-2439

Journal article

Herrick C, Bell K, 2022, Concepts, disciplines and politics: on ‘structural violence’ and the ‘social determinants of health’, Critical Public Health, Vol: 32, Pages: 295-308, ISSN: 0958-1596

It has long been recognised that human health is indelibly shaped by a variety of factors. These include pathogens such as bacteria and viruses, but also broad-ranging social, economic and political forces operating at different spatial scales. In seeking to understand the nature and effects of these forces, two concepts have become particularly influential: the ‘social determinants of health’ and ‘structural violence’. In this paper, we critically examine their origins, tracing their ‘prehistory’ and little-recognised intersections, based on searches of both concepts in PubMed and Google Scholar, and a critical reading of the range of texts our searches produced. This forms the groundwork from which we examine their similarities and differences, and their potentialities and limitations. We demonstrate that both concepts operate largely as black boxes. Their usage has thus become tied to disciplinary and methodological projects, with attendant implications for their wider usage–especially given the respective statuses of the fields of medical anthropology and social epidemiology in public health. We conclude that structural violence and the social determinants of health have both been influential in research and policy, but have struggled to effect the kinds of political change that their moral commitment to social justice promises and that further dialogue between them is required.

Journal article

Bell K, Green J, McLaren L, Mweemba Oet al., 2021, 'Open' relationships: reflections on the role of the journal in the contemporary scholarly publishing landscape, CRITICAL PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 31, Pages: 377-380, ISSN: 0958-1596

Journal article

Bell K, Wynn LL, 2020, Research ethics committees, ethnographers and imaginations of risk, ETHNOGRAPHY, ISSN: 1466-1381

Journal article

Bell K, 2020, Staging prevention, arresting progress: Chronic disease prevention and the lifestyle frame, Preventing Dementia?: Critical Perspectives on a New Paradigm of Preparing for Old Age, Pages: 175-191, ISBN: 9781789209099

Book chapter

Bell K, Green J, 2020, Premature evaluation? Some cautionary thoughts on global pandemics and scholarly publishing, CRITICAL PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 30, Pages: 379-383, ISSN: 0958-1596

Journal article

Bell K, 2020, Signs, things and packaging: Recovering the material agency of the cigarette packet, SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE, Vol: 50, Pages: 30-49, ISSN: 0306-3127

Journal article

Bell K, 2019, Communitas and the commons: The open access movement and the dynamics of restructuration in scholarly publishing, ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Vol: 35, Pages: 21-23, ISSN: 0268-540X

Journal article

Bell K, 2019, The 'problem' of undesigned relationality: Ethnographic fieldwork, dual roles and research ethics, ETHNOGRAPHY, Vol: 20, Pages: 8-26, ISSN: 1466-1381

Journal article

Bell K, 2018, Whatever happened to the 'social' science in <i>Social Science</i> & <i>Medicine</i>? On golden anniversaries and gold standards, SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE, Vol: 214, Pages: 162-166, ISSN: 0277-9536

Journal article

Bell K, 2018, Moral anthropology and a priori enunciations, Moral Anthropology: A Critique, Pages: 49-56, ISBN: 9781785338687

Book chapter

Kierans C, Bell K, 2017, Cultivating ambivalence Some methodological considerations for anthropology, HAU-JOURNAL OF ETHNOGRAPHIC THEORY, Vol: 7, Pages: 23-44, ISSN: 2575-1433

Journal article

Bell K, 2017, 'Predatory' Open Access Journals as Parody: Exposing the Limitations of 'Legitimate' Academic Publishing, TRIPLEC-COMMUNICATION CAPITALISM & CRITIQUE, Vol: 15, Pages: 651-662, ISSN: 1726-670X

Journal article

Bell K, Green J, 2016, On the perils of invoking neoliberalism in public health critique, CRITICAL PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 26, Pages: 239-243, ISSN: 0958-1596

Journal article

Kierans C, Bell K, Kingdon C, 2016, Social and cultural perspectives on health, technology and medicine: Old concepts, new problems, ISBN: 9781138941083

Developments in health, science and technology have long provided fertile analytical ground for social science disciplines. This book focuses on the critical and enduring importance of core concepts in anthropology and sociology for interrogating and keeping pace with developments in the life sciences. The authors consider how transformations in medical and scientific knowledge serve to reanimate older controversies, giving new life to debates about relations between society, culture, knowledge and individuals. They reflect on the particular legacies and ongoing relevance of concepts such as 'culture', 'society', 'magic', 'production', 'kinship', 'exchange' and 'the body'. The chapters draw on the work of key historical and contemporary figures across the social sciences and include a range of illustrative case studies to explore topics such as transplant medicine, genetic counselling, cancer therapy, reproductive health and addiction. Of particular interest to students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, and science and technology studies, this volume will also be a valuable resource for those working in the fields of health and medicine.

Book

Haines-Saah RJ, Bell K, 2016, Challenging key assumptions embedded in Health Canada's cigarette packaging legislation: Findings from in situ interviews with smokers in Vancouver, CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH-REVUE CANADIENNE DE SANTE PUBLIQUE, Vol: 107, Pages: E562-E567, ISSN: 0008-4263

Journal article

Bell K, 2015, Ethical quandaries in social research, ANTHROPOLOGY SOUTHERN AFRICA, Vol: 38, Pages: 382-384, ISSN: 2332-3256

Journal article

Bell K, Dennis S, Robinson J, Moore Ret al., 2015, Does the hand that controls the cigarette packet rule the smoker? Findings from ethnographic interviews with smokers in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA, SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE, Vol: 142, Pages: 136-144, ISSN: 0277-9536

Journal article

Bell K, 2015, Thwarting the Diseased Will: Ulysses Contracts, the Self and Addiction, CULTURE MEDICINE AND PSYCHIATRY, Vol: 39, Pages: 380-398, ISSN: 0165-005X

Journal article

Bell K, 2015, Habits: remaking addiction, CRITICAL PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 25, Pages: 504-505, ISSN: 0958-1596

Journal article

Bell K, 2015, HIV prevention: Making male circumcision the 'right' tool for the job, GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 10, Pages: 552-572, ISSN: 1744-1692

Journal article

Bell K, Ristovski-Slijepcevic S, 2015, Communicating "Evidence": Lifestyle, Cancer, and the Promise of a Disease-free Future, MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Vol: 29, Pages: 216-236, ISSN: 0745-5194

Journal article

Bell K, Stimson GV, 2015, Nicotine: Science, regulation and policy, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRUG POLICY, Vol: 26, Pages: 533-535, ISSN: 0955-3959

Journal article

Bell K, 2015, Breast vs. the rest: A response to Koczwara and Ward, SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE, Vol: 128, Pages: 344-346, ISSN: 0277-9536

Journal article

Bell K, 2015, The Social Value of Drug Addicts: Uses of the Useless, MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Vol: 29, Pages: b14-b16, ISSN: 0745-5194

Journal article

Haines-Saah RJ, Bell K, Dennis S, 2015, A Qualitative Content Analysis of Cigarette Health Warning Labels in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 105, Pages: E61-E69, ISSN: 0090-0036

Journal article

Bell K, Green J, 2015, Keeping a critical edge: reflections on 25 years as a scholarly journal, CRITICAL PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 25, Pages: 1-3, ISSN: 0958-1596

Journal article

Bell K, Elliott D, 2014, Censorship in the name of ethics: critical public health research in the age of human subjects regulation, CRITICAL PUBLIC HEALTH, Vol: 24, Pages: 385-391, ISSN: 0958-1596

Journal article

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