Dr Justin Dixon
BA MA PhD
Assistant Professor
of Medical Anthropology
Justin is a medical anthropologist in the Department of Global Health and Development, currently based at The Health Research Unit Zimbabwe (THRU ZIM). Justin’s research lies at the intersection of the anthropology of science and medicine, with an interest in cross-disciplinary and mixed-methods research. Working mostly in South Africa and Zimbabwe over the last 15 years, his research has been particularly concerned with the (bio-)politics of disease classification in global health and how this shapes the organisation and experience of medical research, training, and care in low-resource contexts.
Justin’s research spans a range of topics including multimorbidity, antimicrobial resistance, vaccines, typhoid, tuberculosis, COVID-19, and the ethics of clinical research. Justin’s main research focus currently is multimorbidity, where he is exploring the possibilities (and limitations) of this conceptual lens for reshaping knowledge and practice in global health. As part of his fellowship, Justin has helped to establish and coordinate the LSHTM Multimorbidity Interest Group within the Centre for Global Chronic Conditions and the Africa Multimorbidity Alliance.
Justin a module organiser and seminar leader for the MSc module Medical Anthropology and Public Health. He also supervises four students in Zimbabwe and South Africa and co-leads the Social Science Working Group for the development of social science capacity at THRU ZIM.
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
Justin is a module organiser and seminar leader for the MSc module Medical Anthropology and Public Health. He also lectures on the Evidence Based Public Health and Policy and Practice module for LSHTM’s DrPH Programme.
Research
Justin's research has primarily been conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa, where his PhD research and postgraduate projects were undertaken, and in Zimbabwe, where his more recent research has been situated. Between 2011 and 2017, Justin worked with a research institute called the South African Tuberculosis Vaccines Initiative (SATVI), which runs TB vaccine trials in the Western Cape. Justin’s PhD thesis explored the effects of these trials on health seeking and delivery, care relations (especially between nurses and patients) and people's attempts to live healthy, moral, and respectable lives in a context of profound social and economic marginalisation.
Since joining LSHTM in 2017, Justin’s research has been primarily in the fields of antimicrobial resistance and multimorbidity. As part of the AMR Centre and the Anthropology of AMR Research Group, Justin has been involved in a range of research, public engagement, and capacity building projects, most notably as social science coordinator of the FCDO-funded FIEBRE study in Africa and Asia, and as co-investigator on a Wellcome Trust study examining the effects of mass typhoid vaccination on antimicrobial prescribing in Harare.
More recently, Justin’s work has turned to chronic disease and specifically the rising global concern with multimorbidity. Supported by a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship and in collaboration with the Organisation for Public Health Interventions and Development (OPHID), Justin is working across a range of disciplines and fields of expertise to co-produce a cross-disciplinary framework for conceptualising and responding to multimorbidity in Zimbabwe. As part of his fellowship, Justin has helped to establish and coordinate the LSHTM Multimorbidity Interest Group within the Centre for Global Chronic Conditions and the Africa Multimorbidity Alliance. He supervises four students in Zimbabwe and South Africa working on multimorbidity, antimicrobial resistance, COVID-19, and tuberculosis. Justin further co-leads the Social Science Working Group at THRU ZIM that aims to strengthen social science research capacity at THRU ZIM and in Zimbabwe more broadly.
Selected Publications
