Associate Professor Alex Broom

Associate Professor Alex Broom
Associate Professor Alex Broom
Associate Professor of 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:

2012-15 Australian Research Council Linkage Grant [LP120200268] Pathways to and through palliative care: A sociological study of patient, carer and clinician experiences at the end of life. [with Adams, Yates, Kirby, Good, Wootton, Hardy] $164,830 [Total cash and in-kind $591,411]

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
 

Research Staff and Students:

Dr Emma Kirby (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sociology)
Dr John MacArtney (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sociology)

Mary Anne Patton (Research Assistant)
Stephen O'Brien (PhD Candidate)
Shari Bonnette (PhD Candidate)
Amie Steel (PhD Candidate)
Jo Ragan (PhD Candidate)
Vanessa Thompson (PhD Candidate)
Glenda Jessop (PhD Candidate)
Anita Niehues (PhD Candidate)
Natasha Gravill (PhD Candidate)
Laura Cox (PhD Candidate)

 

Project sites:

The Sociology of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine

The Sociology of Cancer and End-of-Life Care
 
 
Recent Representative Publications:
 

Broom, A., Kirby, E., Good, P., Wootton, J. & Adams, J. (in press) The art of letting go: Referral to palliative care and its discontents. Social Science and Medicine.

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.

Meurk, C., Broom, A., Adams, J. and Sibbritt, D (in press) Rurality, mobility, identity: Women’s use of complementary and alternative medicine in rural Australia. Health and Place. DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2012.12.005

Meurk, C., Broom, A., Adams, J. and Sibbritt, D. (in press) Bodies of knowledge: Nature, holism and women’s plural health practices. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine DOI: 10.1177/1363459312447258.

Broom, A., Meurk, C., Adams, J. and Sibbritt, D. (in press) My health, my responsibility? Complementary medicine and self (health) care. Journal of Sociology.

Broom, A., Kirby, E., Good, P., Wootton, J. & Adams, J. (in press) Specialists’ experiences and perspectives on the timing of referral to palliative care: a qualitative study. Journal of Palliative Medicine DOI: 10.1089/jpm.2012.0264.

Broom, A., Kirby, E. & Good, P. (2012) Referring to specialist palliative care. Internal Medicine Journal Vol. 42 No. 9, pp1040-1042.

Adams, J., Magin, P. & Broom, A. (eds) (in press) Primary Care and Complementary and Integrative Medicine: Contemporary Practice and Research. Imperial College Press: London.

Adams, J., Andrews, G., Barnes, J., Broom, A. & Magin, P. (eds) (2012) Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine: An International Reader. Palgrave-Macmillan: London.

Adams, J., Chi Wai, L., Sibbritt, D., Wardle, J. & Broom, A. (2012) Who uses glucosamine and why? A study of 266,848 Australians aged 45 years and older. PLoS ONE Vol. 7 No. 7, e41540.
 
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.

 

Recent Books:

 Book Cover - Health Culture and Religion in South Asia Book Cover Health Culture and Religion in South Asia Indian Version Book Cover Mens Health.jpg
 Book Cover TCAM and Cancer Care Book Cover Therapuetic Pluralism 
 

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