Professor Magdalena Harris
Professor of Inclusion Health - Sociology
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9SH
United Kingdom
Magdalena Harris is Professor of Inclusion Health Sociology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and holds an honorary Inclusion Health Consultant position at University College London Hospital NHS Trust. She works in partnership with community organisations, through qualitative methods, peer research & intervention science, to understand and address stigma and health inequity among inclusion health populations. She currently leads two NIHR-funded research projects aiming to improve service provision, health and social outcomes for people who use heroin and crack cocaine, respectively. In 2020 she received the Society for Study of Addiction Impact Prize "in recognition of her high-quality, innovative research and its positive, practical impact for people who inject drugs" and in 2022 was elected a Membership through Distinction of the Faculty of Public Health.
Some background about how she came to work in the harm reduction field can be found in this brief video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H51Nk-I7PA
Some background about how she came to work in the harm reduction field can be found in this brief video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H51Nk-I7PA
Affiliations
Department of Public Health, Environments and Society
Faculty of Public Health and Policy
Centres
Antimicrobial Resistance Centre
Teaching
Magdalena is Module Co-Organiser, with Tim Rhodes, for the Qualitative Methodologies (1700) MSc Module. She leads the Introduction to Qualitative Interviewing and Qualitative Analysis workshops for the Transferable Skills Programme and is a guest lecturer for the LSHTM Sociology of Health Module, the Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Module and for 4th year pharmacy students at the University of Bath.
Research
Magdalena is Principal Investigator for two NIHR funded research projects: Improving Hospital Opiate Substitution Therapy (iHOST): implementation and assessment of an intervention to reduce late presentations, discharges against medical advice and repeat admissions among people who use opiates, and Safe Inhallation Pipe Provision (SIPP): A mixed method evaluation of an intervention to reduce health harms and enhance service engagement among people who use crack cocaine in England.
She has previously held an NIHR Post Doctoral Fellowship ('the Hepatitis C Treatment Journey') and an NIHR Career Development Fellowship: "Promoting skin & soft tissue infection care and preventing AA amyloidosis among people who inject drugs in the UK: A mixed methods study."
Her research interests include: the social relations of harm reduction; community participation and mobilisation; stigma and discrimination; embodiment; autoethnography and qualitative methodologies.
Here she talks about her work on the Staying Safe project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsWn0_gOT4Q&feature=relmfu
She has previously held an NIHR Post Doctoral Fellowship ('the Hepatitis C Treatment Journey') and an NIHR Career Development Fellowship: "Promoting skin & soft tissue infection care and preventing AA amyloidosis among people who inject drugs in the UK: A mixed methods study."
Her research interests include: the social relations of harm reduction; community participation and mobilisation; stigma and discrimination; embodiment; autoethnography and qualitative methodologies.
Here she talks about her work on the Staying Safe project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsWn0_gOT4Q&feature=relmfu
Research Area
Health inequalities
Substance use
Sociology
Qualitative research
Disease and Health Conditions
Addiction
Hepatitis
Skin diseases
Country
Colombia
Myanmar
United Kingdom
Region
Euro area
Selected Publications
Provision of safer smoking equipment to reduce health harms and enhance service engagement among people who use crack: a realist informed review.
2026
The International journal on drug policy
Working with, learning from and giving back: Principles for collaborative research with people who use drugs
2026
Addiction (Abingdon, England)
Is nitazene-related mortality underestimated? Findings from an in vivo and ex vivo rat study and pharmacoepidemiological analysis of coroner-reported deaths.
2026
Clinical toxicology (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Pipes as an engagement tool: qualitative findings from a crack equipment and harm reduction training intervention in England.
2026
The International journal on drug policy
Post-treatment life-trajectories among people who inject drugs who completed hepatitis C treatment with direct acting antivirals: A thematic analysis.
2025
British journal of health psychology
Interventions to improve access to opioid agonist therapy in acute hospitals: A scoping review.
2025
PLOS Mental Health
