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Dr

Mette Furbo

Lecturer in Sociology of Public Health

Public Health, Policy & Systems

Orcid identifier0000-0002-5295-1735
  • Lecturer in Sociology of Public Health
    Public Health, Policy & Systems

ABOUT

Personal Statement
I work at the intersections of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the sociology of disease, health and illness. I'm interested in the relationship between science and medicine, including how scientific and biomedical knowledge is translated into public health policy and practice, and healthcare practice, e.g. through disciplinary frameworks and concepts, and the implications for people’s everyday lives.

In my current research, I bring together social theory with an STS approach to explore nutrition-related research, public health and policy. I am interested in ways of knowing relations between bodies and environments, and how those affect problem descriptions and definitions, and subsequent solutions. Through my work, I explore the entanglements and thresholds of food/nutrients and bodies to advance biosocial understandings of what it means to ingest, digest and metabolise food and nutrients.

I led the ESRC-funded project 'Why the Folate Controversy Persists: Mapping the Biosocial Complexities of Folate' (New Investigator Award) (Nov 2023 - June 2025). I've also done research on better understanding how individuals make sense of their bodies drawing on a variety of different knowledges (e.g. genetic knowlege), and how they live with chronic illness, focusing on the social, practical and emotional burdens that accompany life with a chronic illness.

UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL ORGANISATIONAL UNITS MEMBERSHIP

UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

  • 10 Reduced Inequalities
  • 13 Climate Action
  • 3 Good Health and Well Being

RESEARCH AREAS