Dr Runa Lazzarino

Biography

I am a socio-cultural and medical anthropologist. I have expertise in critical, transcultural and global (mental) health, in relation to vulnerable migrants/minorities and to advanced technologies. I co-lead theory-based studies in health care and human mobility to deliver user-centred, impactful research. With specialised expertise in migrant, digital, and mental health, I strive to critically and creatively connect users’ experiences with structural factors of inequalities and social determinants to improve policies, service provision, and EDI.

Currently, I am a fellow co-leading the North London team in an AHRC project tackling refugee and migrant health exclusion with creative methods. I am also a consultant for an NHS ICS co-produced research on the role of cultural competence in addressing mental health inequalities. Previously, I was the principal researcher in a NIHR study on the human factors around digital systems - which entailed ethnographic work in secondary care - and in a participatory, multi-country UKRI study on gender migration in the Global South (Gender, Justice, and Security HUB). 

I am known internationally for my research in post-trafficking experiences and social/mental health care services. I have been involved in research projects on vulnerable migrants' and refugees' mental health, cultural competence in nursing care, socially assistive robots and other advanced technology in healthcare, spiritual care needs during major health disasters, creative health and creative, participatory methods for health inclusion, and computerised clinical decision support systems. I have published widely in these same fields for international journals such as Social Theory and Health; BMJOpen; Medicine, Anthropology, Theory; and Journal of Research in Nursing. In addition to several book chapters, I also recently co-edited the volume Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking: The Victim Journey (Policy Press/Bristol University Press, 2022).

I obtained my Ph.D. with a multi-stakeholder and multi-country ethnography concentrating on post-trafficking recovery and humanitarian assistance. I subsequently held post-doc posts at the University of Oxford, UCL, the University of Nottingham, and Middlesex University London, while being an honorary fellow of St Mary's University and acting as a research consultant. 

Together with investigating advanced technologies in healthcare, my research interests include global (mental) health; inclusive digital health; socio-cultural/gender norms, discourses and structural determinants of health(care); creative and somatic expression as means of research and healing. Excelling in anthropological ethnography, I have expanded my expertise in qualitative research at large, within mix-method studies, and with participatory/co-produced and creative/multimodal methodologies within the framework of policy-oriented and impactful research. Theoretically, my viewpoint is attentive to power/agency, subjectivity, intersectionality, post-colonialism and feminism, and epistemology in medical anthropology and social theory. 

Regional expertise: Southeast Asia (Northern Vietnam), Lusophone South America (Central West Brazil), South Asia (Nepal and Northern India), and the UK. 

I have wide ranging research collaborations with international multidisciplinary scientists at various institutions in the UK and abroad. I am a reviewer for several journals, including Qualitative Research, Sociology of Health and Illness, and Societies, and for the UKRI.