Professor Ruth Holliday joins panel to guest edit issue of the Social Science and Medicine journal

The paper, entitled Exploring complex causal pathways between urban renewal, health and health inequality was co-written by Dr Ana Manzano, Dr Joanne Greenhalgh and Professor Ray Pawson.

This month Ruth Holliday joined a panel to guest edit a landmark special issue of the journal Social Science and Medicine on the growing phenomenon of Transnational Healthcare.

Professor Holliday was joined by David Bell (School of Geography, University of Leeds), Meghann Ormond (Wageningen University) and Tomas Mainil (NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences).

The special issue explores a diverse range of medical travel from simply crossing a national border to access the nearest hospital to undertaking gruelling journeys from neighbouring countries to countries such as Malaysia or South Africa because medical provision is simply unavailable back home. Patients also travel to circumvent legal restrictions for medical services such as transnational surrogacy or stem cell treatments. And it is not just patients who travel, medical and nursing staff also cross national borders for better pay and conditions in richer countries, as part of health diplomacy packages or as temporary workers to generate extra income streams. Included in this special issue is a paper on their Leeds-based multi-national collaborative research project exploring the flows and networks of cosmetic surgery tourism.

The full paper 'Brief encounters: Assembling cosmetic surgery tourism' is available online.

In the same edition, an article contributed to by other members of staff from the School of Sociology and Social Policy explores urban renewal, health and health inequality making the "most cited social science journal" a showcase for research at Leeds. The paper, entitled 'Exploring complex causal pathways between urban renewal, health and health inequality using a theory-driven realist approach' was co-written by Dr Ana Manzano, Dr Joanne Greenhalgh and Professor Ray Pawson, amongst others.

The full paper 'Exploring complex causal pathways between urban renewal, health and health inequality using a theory-driven realist approach' is available online.

Further information can be found in the Social Science and Medicine journal.