Top social sciences award for Lancaster University professor

Prof Jennie Popay of Lancaster University is among leading social scientists who have been awarded a Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences.
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The Academy’s Fellowship comprises distinguished social scientists from academia and the public, private and third sectors.

Will Hutton FAcSS, president of the Academy of Social Sciences, said: "The Academy of Social Sciences is delighted to welcome the Spring 2022 group of new Fellows to join our ranks - representing an excellent range of highly distinguished social scientists. We look forward to engaging with them in our work."

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Newly elected Fellows are selected through an independent peer review which recognises their excellence and impact, including their wider contributions to social sciences for public benefit.

Prof Jennie Popay.Prof Jennie Popay.
Prof Jennie Popay.

Prof Popay said: “I am grateful to my peers for this recognition and honoured to be made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. In my own field social scientific knowledge is being produced and mobilised to better understand the drivers of social and health inequalities and to shape action in the pursuit of a fairer world. Membership of the Academy provides an invaluable platform for me to continue to champion the vital contribution the social sciences make in this field and to the public good more generally.”

Jennie has been Professor of Sociology and Public Health in the Division of Health Research since January 2002. She is co-director of the Liverpool and Lancaster Universities Collaboration for Public Health Research, one of eight academic members of the NIHR School for Public Health Research, where she is the lead for public and community involvement.

She has made an extensive contribution to the sociology of health inequalities globally working in academia, the NHS and the third sector in high- and low-income countries.

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Her contributions span the social determinants of health equity, evaluation of public policies, community empowerment and the sociology of knowledge. Her pioneering work on lay knowledge is the basis for social science critiques of linear explanations of health inequality.

She has led evaluations of major community empowerment programmes which have informed the design of more effective action to reduce these inequalities. She is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Expert Group for WHO EURO’s Health Equity Status Initiative, which aims to support governments across the EURO region.

With colleagues she has produced a suite of online resources to support research teams to strengthen the equity focus of their research (Focus on Equity in Research – FOR EQUITY - to be launched on March 15) and the PiiAF tool here.

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