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Dr Benjamin Kasstan

MSc PhD

Research Fellow
Medical Anthropology

LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom

I am a medical anthropologist based in the Department of Global Health and Development and the NIHR-funded Health Protection Research Unit in Immunisation. Over the past ten years I have been investigating how health protection is constructed by minority populations and public health services, particularly issues around vaccines and immunizations, reproductive health, and sexuality education. My research has been published in discipline-leading journals, including Social Science & MedicineJournal of the Royal Anthropological InstituteMedical Anthropology Quarterly, and Vaccine. I am committed to the tangible translation of research expertise and I have been commissioned as an expert reviewer for the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology, my research has been featured on GAVI's Vaccine Works and has been cited in WHO implementation guidance. Since 2019, I have served as Associate Editor of Anthropology & Medicine and I am a member of the Editorial Board of Humanities & Social Sciences Communications

Affiliations

Department of Global Health and Development

Research

Trained as a medical anthropologist, I have been immersed in interdsciplinary environments and my research is influenced by critical public health, health law, and bioethics. I am interested in how the transformative and transgressive possibilities of technology engender multiple, and at times opposing, quests and questions around health protection between minorities and the state. My research is primarily ethnographic, but also integrates archival research and discursive analysis to trace the production and construction of public health challenges over time. I am committed to developing theoretical knowledge as much as practical solutions around health protection. I have published widely on vaccines and immunization, and sexual and reproductive health and sexuality education. 

Research Area
Child health
Health policy
Maternal health
Public health
Sexual health
Vaccines
Adolescent health
Health workers
Ethics
Fertility
Gender
Global Health
Ethnography
Immunisation
Inequalities
Neonatal health
Discipline
Anthropology
History
Policy analysis
Social Sciences
Socio-legal studies
Law
Social Policy
Disease and Health Conditions
HIV/AIDS
Pandemic diseases
Sexually transmitted disease
Hepatitis
Sexually transmitted infection
Coronavirus
Country
United Kingdom
The Gambia
Ireland
Israel
Region
European Union
Middle East & North Africa (all income levels)
Sub-Saharan Africa (all income levels)

Selected Publications

Aporetic differences? Equality entitlements, religious schools, and contours of protection
Kasstan B
2023
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Linked poliovirus incidents in the UK, USA and Israel: Silent transmission or missed warnings of vaccine inequity?
Kasstan B; Chantler T; Marcus B; Mounier-Jack S; Saliba V; Edelstein M
2023
Vaccine
Orthodox Fraternities and Contingent Equalities: Muslims and Jews between Public (Health) Policy Discourse and Experience
Kasstan B
2022
Jews and Muslims in Europe: Between Discourse and Experience
\"We've all got the virus inside us now\": Disaggregating public health relations and responsibilities for health protection in pandemic London.
Kasstan B; Mounier-Jack S; Gaskell KM; Eggo RM; Marks M; Chantler T
2022
Social Science and Medicine
Localising vaccination services: Qualitative insights on public health and minority group collaborations to co-deliver coronavirus vaccines.
Kasstan B; Mounier-Jack S; Letley L; Gaskell KM; Roberts CH; Stone NRH; Lal S; Eggo RM; Marks M; Chantler T
2022
Vaccine
Transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 in a strictly-Orthodox Jewish community in the UK.
Waites W; Pearson CAB; Gaskell KM; House T; Pellis L; Johnson M; Gould V; Hunt A; Stone NRH; Kasstan B
2022
Scientific Reports
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