Projects with keyword: Health

The main aim of the project is to examine what role ethnicity and gender have in the treatment of women of migrant background in primary health care, and how this is reflected in the every day practice in three different institutions: a primary health care center (vårdcentral); a youth clinic (ungdomsmottagning) and a maternity welfare clinic.

The project contains three sub-studies that examine three different empirical levels. The first study analyses definitions and intentions on a policy level and map out how the work is organised in different institutions. The second study examines the level of implementation and focuses on the every day practice of the three institutions. Method for this study includes both focus group interviews and single interviews. The third study examines, through in-depth interviews, how migrant women experience the treatment from the different institutions. The project applies a comparative perspective and analyses similarities and differences between the different institutions as well as between the different empirical levels.

Project 2
Previous research indicates that young people's sexual risk taking varies depending upon gender, ethnicity and class. A main aim of the study is therefore to explore the issue from an intersectional perspective focusing on how intersections of race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class shape young people's sexual practice in general and sexual risk taking in particular. In addition, the project consists of two subprojects, one focusing on sexual risk taking in relation to alcohol consumption, and the other on sexual risk taking among gay and lesbian youth.

Theoretically, the project sets out from a perspective where sexual risk taking (as well as alcohol consumption) is understood as shaped by socio-cultural and structural factors. By adopting a qualitative approach (using focus groups and individual interviews), the project seeks to expand a research field that is dominated by quantitative studies.

The purpose of this project is to explore the complex changes brought about by the SSRI revolution from an intersectional and multi-sited perspective. The project particularly focuses on understandings of the self and on experiences, practices, biomedical knowledge production and discourses related to depression and medication. The project applies an explorative and interdisciplinary approach. It involves researchers in science and technology studies (STS), gender studies, developmental biology and cultural studies and thus bridges the epistemological gap between the natural sciences and the social sciences/humanities. The project is multi-sited and focuses on four themes: (1) the everyday experiences of patients/users of SSRI; (2) the clinical practices and professional experiences of primary care physicians that meet and treat these patients; (3) the developments and changes in the production of biomedical knowledge on brains and SSRIs as well as its dissemination into clinical practice; and (4) the discursive construc¬tion of the self, depression and SSRI-usage in policy and public debate. Throughout the project the following questions will be central: (a) how are depression and depressive-like symptoms understood and experienced and what treatments and strategies are seen as appropriate?; (b) how are the effects and efficacy of SSRIs experienced, conceptualised and measured?; (c) how is the self understood, and what is the relation between self and body?; and (d) how are these processes affected by and affecting how different masculinities and femininities are bodily experienced, lived as identities and discursively shaped?

Previous research has demonstrated differences in health between immigrants and natives in Sweden along several dimensions, e.g. regarding self-reported health, hospitalisation rates, as well as mortality rates. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of early life conditions in the country of birth and current socioeconomic conditions in adult life in Sweden on severe morbidity (leading to hospitalisation) and on mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancers, and other causes, among immigrants and natives in Sweden.
The study uses two large-scale databases; SMD (Social Medicine Data Base) and SLI (Swedish Longitudinal Immigrant Database) Results show that when controlling for demographic characteristics only, most immigrant groups display higher rates of hospitalisation and higher all-cause mortality than native Swedes, but when socio-economic factors are introduced, only Nordic immigrants display rates that are significantly higher than for Swedish born.
The effects of current adult life socioeconomic conditions in Sweden on mortality are both stronger and more straightforward than the effects of early life conditions.

The aim of this project is to examine representations, knowledge and experiences around youth and sexual risk. The recent years´increase of sexually transmitted diseases indicates that sexual risk taking among young men and women are relatively common. Previous research has also shown that such risk taking varies among different groups of young people. The project will therefore specifically focus on how - depending upon class, ethnicity and sexual identity - different masculinities and femininities are linked to sexual risk taking. The project sets out from a theoretical understanding that social structures and cultural contexts shape the understanding of what constitutes "risky" and "safe" sexual practices. It uses discourse theory as an over all methodological framework, and applies several qualitative methods. It is divided into three substudies: (1) the first examines informational and educational safer sex material targeting young people; (2) the second examines, through focus group interviews, how young people interprets a selection of the same material; (3) and the third observe the formal school based sex education through observations and single interviews.

The aim of this project is to examine the extent to which ethnic differences in health are ascribed a biological significance in a Swedish context, and if so, how that may impact on equality in health care as well as attitudes on race and ethnicity.
The project will meet its aim through two case studies: Psychiatric Ill-health (Depression/Anxiety) and Diabetes (Type 2) in Sweden. Both Psychiatric Ill-health and Diabetes constitute major health problems both globally and nationally, and in both cases, migrants are identified as disproportionally affected. Migrants vulnerability is explained both with reference to sociocultural factors and to genetic or neurobiological differences between different ethnic groups. The latter have gained increased significance during the last decades, which has been interpreted by scholars in science and technology studies as a “biomedicalization” of society. Some also argue that biomedicalization is transforming the social categories of race and ethnicity to primarily biological categories.
Through a detailed empirical study, this project thus examines to what extent this is true in Sweden.