Associate Professor Alex Broom

Associate Professor Alex Broom

Associate Professor
Sociology
Australian Research Council Future Fellow

a.broom@uq.edu.au
Phone: (+61 7) 336 52022
Fax: (+61 7) 336 51544

Room 437, Level 4,
Michie Building (#9), St Lucia Campus

Qualifications:

PhD (Sociology) La Trobe University (Australia)
MA (Sociology) University of Canterbury (NZ)
BA - Hons (Sociology) University of Canterbury (NZ)

Background:

Associate Professor of Sociology and Australian Research Council Future Fellow, 2011 - present
Visiting Professor, Centre for Biomedicine and Society, School of Social Sciences, Brunel University London, United Kingdom, 2011 - present
Visiting Professor, Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India 2009 - present
Visiting Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 2011
Senior Lecturer in Health Sociology, The University of Sydney, 2009 - 2011
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Sociology, The University of Newcastle, 2007 - 2009
UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Sociology), The University of Queensland, 2006 - 2007
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Leeds, 2004 - 2006

Research Interests:

Sociology of health and illness
Sociology of traditional, complementary and alternative medicines
Men’s health and masculinities
Qualitative methodologies
Cancer and end-of-life care
Organisational and inter-professional dynamics
Health in developing countries
Social theory as applied to health.

Recent Research Projects:

2011-15 Australian Research Council Future Fellowship [FT100100294] The changing landscapes of medical pluralism: a sociological analysis of patient experiences and decision making in Australia, India and Brazil. $656,448

2011-13 Australian Research Council Discovery Project [DP110104636] Navigating back pain care: a sociological study of women's illness pathways within and between intersecting social worlds. [with Adams, Refshauge, Sibbritt] $391,622

2010-12 Australian Research Council Discovery Grant [DP1094765] Therapeutic pluralism in pregnancy, labour and birthing: Decision-making, communication and interprofessional dynamics [with Adams, Gallois and Sibbritt] $270,000

2009-10 AUSAID Australian Development Research Awards Masculinities and Violence in Indonesia and India [with Nilan et al] $116,526

2008-11 National Health and Medical Research Council Complementary medicine use among mid-age women: a national mixed-methods study across the urban-rural divide [with Adams et al] $450,771

Project sites:

Sociology of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Sociology of Cancer and End-of-Life Care

Recent Representative Publications:

Broom, A. and Kirby, E. (in press) The end of life and the family: Hospice patients’ views on dying as relational. Sociology of Health and Illness

Broom, A. and Doron, A. (in press) Traditional medicines, collective negotiation, and representations of risk in Indian cancer care. Qualitative Health Research

Broom, A. (2012) On euthanasia, resistance and redemption: The moralities and politics of a hospice. Qualitative Health Research. DOI: 10.1177/1049732311421181

Broom, A. and Doron, A. (2012) The rise of cancer in urban India: Cultural understandings, structural inequalities, and the emergence of the clinic. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine. DOI: 10.1177/1363459311403949

Bonnette, S. and Broom, A. (2012) On grief, fathering and the male role in men’s accounts of stillbirth. Journal of Sociology. DOI: 10.1177/1363459311403949

Broom, A. and Adams, J. (eds.) (2012) Evidence-Based Healthcare in Context: Critical Social Science Perspectives. Ashgate: Farnham. ISBN: 978-0-7546-7981-3

Doron, A. and Broom, A. (eds.) (2011) Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia: Critical Perspectives. Routledge: London and New York.

Broom, A. and Cavenagh, J. (2011) On the meanings and experiences of living and dying in a hospice Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine Vol. 15 No. 1 pp.96–111.

Broom, A. and Adams, J. (2010) The reconfiguration of expertise in oncology: The practice of prediction and articulation of indeterminacy in medical consultations. Qualitative Health Research Vol. 20 No. 10, pp.1433–1445

Broom, A. and Cavenagh, J. (2010) Moralities, masculinities and caring for the dying: An exploration of experiences of living and dying in a hospice. Social Science and Medicine. Vol. 71, No. 5, pp.869-876

Broom, A., Cheshire, L. & Emmison, M. (2009) Qualitative researchers' understandings of their practice and the implications for data archiving and sharing. Sociology Vol. 43, No. 6, pp1163-1180

Broom, A., Doron, A. & Tovey, P. (2009) The inequalities of medical pluralism: Hierarchies of health, the politics of tradition and the economies of care in Indian oncology. Social Science and Medicine Vol. 69 No. 5, pp. 698-706

Broom, A. (2009) Intuition, subjectivity and le bricoleur: Cancer patients’ accounts of negotiating a plurality of therapeutic options. Qualitative Health Research Vol. 19 No. 8 pp. 1050-1059

Broom, A., Adams, J. & Tovey, P. (2009) Evidence-based healthcare in practice: A study of clinical resistance, professional deskilling, and inter-specialty differentiation in oncology. Social Science and Medicine Vol. 68, No. 1 pp.192–200

Broom, A. and Tovey, P. (eds.) (2009) Men’s Health: Body, Identity and Social Context. Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford.

Broom, A. and Tovey, P. (2008) Therapeutic pluralism: Exploring the experiences of cancer patients and professionals. Routledge: London and New York.

Broom, A. and Tovey, P. (2008) Exploring the temporal dimension in cancer patients’ experiences of non-biomedical therapeutics. Qualitative Health Research Vol. 18, No. 12, pp. 1650-1661.

Tovey, P., Chatwin, J., & Broom, A. (2007) Traditional, complementary and alternative medicine and cancer care: An international analysis of grassroots integration. Routledge: London and New York.

Broom, A. and Tovey, P. (2007) The dialectical tension between individuation and depersonalisation in cancer patients’ mediation of complementary, alternative and biomedical cancer treatments. Sociology Vol. 41 No. 6 pp. 1021–1039.

Tovey, P. and Broom, A. (2007) Cancer patients’ negotiation of therapeutic options in Pakistan. Qualitative Health Research Vol. 17 No. 5 pp. 652-662.

Broom, A. and Tovey, P. (2007) Therapeutic Pluralism? Evidence, power and legitimacy in UK cancer services. Sociology of Health and Illness Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 551-569.

Tovey, P. and Broom, A. (2007) Oncologists’ and specialist cancer nurses’ approaches to complementary and alternative medicine use and their impact on patient action. Social Science and Medicine Vol. 64 pp 2550-2564.