Rate My Professor Felicity Thomas

Professor Felicity Thomas serves as Professor of Culture and Health Inequalities and Director of Research and Impact in the Department of Health and Community Sciences at the University of Exeter Medical School. She earned a BA (Hons) in Anthropology and Geography from University College London and completed doctoral research examining the impacts of HIV and AIDS on rural livelihoods and social support networks in southern Africa. Before entering academia, she worked for several years in the international development sector. As an applied social scientist with an interdisciplinary background, Thomas utilizes narrative, ethnographic, and participatory research methods to investigate social, cultural, and political factors that perpetuate health inequalities in low-income communities and among migrant groups, as well as environment-related health inequities and the promotion of healthy schools. Her current research explores how moral narratives surrounding responsibility and welfare reform contribute to the medicalisation of distress in low-income UK communities. She has undertaken policy-relevant research for organizations such as UNAIDS, WHO, the Ministerio da Educacao in Brazil, and the Departments of Health, Education, and Communities in New South Wales, Australia.

Thomas has co-edited several key books, including Handbook of Migration and Health (2016), Culture, Health and Sexuality: An Introduction (2015), Migration, Health and Inequality (2013), and Mobility, Sexuality and AIDS (2010). Notable publications include "Culture matters: using a cultural contexts of health approach to enhance policy-making" (2017), "Stigma, fatigue and social breakdown: exploring the impacts of HIV/AIDS on patient and carer well-being in the Caprivi Region, Namibia" (2006), "Use of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) in Practice: Interactions between patients and physicians" (2020), "Healthy publics: enabling cultures and environments for health" (2018), and "Emotional interactions and an ethics of care: Caring relations in families affected by HIV and AIDS" (2009). She is co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Culture and Health and serves on WHO Europe Expert Advisory Groups on the Cultural Contexts of Health and the Enhancement of Health 2020 Monitoring and Evaluation. Thomas contributes to interdisciplinary teaching by incorporating humanities and social sciences into the medical curriculum and leads projects such as DeSTRESS, focused on women's health in urban environments.