Isabelle Lange BA MSc

Research Fellow in Anthropology

I am pursuing a PhD in anthropology in the Department of Global Health and Development supervised by Wenzel Geissler. My dissertation looks at identity transformation through the lens of surgical care and religious belief, for which I was based in Benin for fieldwork. Over the course of 24 months I followed the complex paths of both patients and volunteers of a Christian medical NGO as they sought and offered free health care in southern West Africa.  I hold an MSc in medical anthropology (University College London) and a BA in social/cultural anthropology (Wesleyan University).

Affiliation

Teaching

I am a personal tutor on the Public Health in Developing Countries (PHDC) MSc as well as a tutor in medical anthropology on the distance learning course in Public Health. I also lecture on the Current Issues in Safe Motherhood module, and have been a seminar leader for the Principles of Social Research module.

Research

My research interests lie in the choices surrounding health care and well being; the framing, understanding and transfer of health policy; personal and institutional responses to change; and the interplay between different beliefs and health systems.

I am currently working on two projects in maternal health in lower income countries:

1) I am involved as an anthropologist with AudObEm, a project entitled "Effectiveness of facility-based audits to improve the responsiveness of West African district hospitals to obstetric emergencies: a three-country cluster randomised controlled trial". This EU-funded trial is coordinated by LSHTM and runs from 2007-2012 in Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger; the consortium includes partners from those countries, plus Belgium and Romania.

2) With FEMHealth (EU FP7), a project looking at the impact of the removal of obstetric user fees on maternity care in African countries, my research focuses on two main areas:  the quality of care in hospitals and the creation and transfer of health policy (in Morocco, Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali).

Research areas

  • Maternal health
  • Research : policy relationship

Disciplines

  • Anthropology

Other interests

  • Faith
  • MARCH
  • Narrative Ethnography
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