Social Policy – (Ph.D.)

The University of Essex is one of the UK´s leading academic institutions, ranked ninth nationally for research excellence following the last Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).

The School of Health and Human Sciences offers an interdisciplinary environment reflecting current trends and cutting-edge developments in the fields of health and social care. In the last RAE, research within the School was submitted with the University's Department of Sociology, which was ranked first in the UK.

The School is expanding rapidly with a variety of health, nursing and related courses. Students come from a range of backgrounds including nurses, doctors, psychologies, allied health professionals, care assistants and social workers. Visiting fellows and visiting lecturers who are experienced practitioners provide further specialist contribution to our programmes. The School also draws on expertise of other departments, schools and centres in the University.

Within the School, educational provision meets professional regulatory requirements and achieves high standards. Staff are multi-professional, have clinical and academic credibility, and work across traditional boundaries.

Research supervision is available in: analysis of large scale surveys; augmentative and alternative communication; child and adolescent mental health; children with physical disabilities; children with special educational needs; clinical decision making; clinical psychology; cognitive behavioural approaches to pain management; consumerism and consumption in health care; cross-cultural mental health; discourse analysis; educational psychology; evaluation of psychological treatments; health care technology; health inequalities; health related social movements; health related stigma; health services research; mental health services; nursing theory and practice; parents, children and educational services; physiotherapy education and practice; social epidemiology; public health practice and policy; representation of language in graphic symbols; public health management; service evaluation and development; social aspects of HIV/AIDS; sociology of risk; social organisation of health care; sociology of health and illness; sociology of mental health; speech motor control; understanding and application of research in health settings.