Associate Professor Niamh Stephenson

Associate Professor Niamh Stephenson

Associate Professor
Medicine & Health
School of Population Health

Research Interests:
Dr Stephenson is an Associate Professor in Social Science the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, whose research examines the relationships between public health and social and political change. Her current book project (co-authored with Prof. Susan Kippax) examines the global response to HIV and the role that response has played in the broader securitization of global public.

Her first book, Analysing Everyday Experience: Social Research and Political Change examines how HIV positive people's experiences are both shaped by and can subvert dominant understandings of HIV, health and illness (co-authored with Dimitris Papadopoulos, published by Palgrave, 2006).

Her second book, Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century, examines recent shifts in the politics of experience in the fields of health, labour and migration (co-authored with Dimitris Papadopoulos and Vassilis Tsianos, Pluto, 2008).

She has published in the fields of sociology of health & medicine, social research, cultural studies and qualitative research methods and is currently researching pandemic influenza and biosecurity.

Broad Research Areas:
HIV - AIDS, Global Health, Infectious Diseases, Health Promotion

Qualifications:
BA Hons TCD, PhD Macquarie

Society Memberships & Professional Activities:
Editorial Boards: Culture,Health & Sexuality; Theory & Psychology, Subjectivity

Specific Research Keywords:
Social Change, Psychosocial Issues, Health Inequalities, Research methods, Social Determinants of Health

Phone
02 9385 1281
  • Books | 2016
    Kippax S; Stephenson N, 2016, Socialising the Biomedical Turn in HIV Prevention, Anthem Press, London, UK,
    Books | 2015
    PAPADOPOULOS D; STEPHENSON N; TSIANOS V, 2015, Escape Routes, Pluto Press,
    Books | 2008
    Papadopoulos D; Stephenson N; Tsianos V, 2008, Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century, Original, Pluto Press, London,
    Books | 2006
    Stephenson N; Papadopoulos D, 2006, Analysing Everyday Experience: Social Research and Political Change, Palgrave, Houndsmill, Basingstoke
  • Book Chapters | 2020
    Stephenson N; Chaukra S; Katz I; Heywood A, 2020, 'Newspaper coverage of childhood immunisation in Australia', in Media Analysis and Public Health, Routledge, pp. 106 - 117,
    Book Chapters | 2017
    Stephenson N; Kippax S, 2017, 'Memory Work', in Willig C (ed.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, pp. 122 - 141
    Book Chapters | 2016
    Kippax S; Stephenson N, 2016, 'Infectious Disease and Globalization', in Turner BS; Holton R (ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Globalization Studies, Routledge, Oxon, pp. 216 - 237,
    Book Chapters | 2012
    Stephenson N, 2012, 'The disappearing act of global health security', in Enemark C; Selgelid MJ (ed.), Ethics and Security Aspects of Infectious Disease Control, Ashgate Publishing Group, Surrey, pp. 97 - 110,
    Book Chapters | 2007
    Papadopoulos D; Stephenson N, 2007, 'Travelling experience: Rethinking the limits of empirical evidence in social science', in Deventer V; Blanche T; Fourie ; Segalo (ed.), Citizen City: Between Constructing Agent and Constructing Agency, edn. 1, Captus, York, Canada, pp. 128 - 139
    Book Chapters | 2005
    Stephenson N, 2005, 'Interrogating the political value of psychology', in Contemporary Theorizing in Psychology: Global Perspectives, edn. 1, Captus Press Inc., York, pp. 124 - 131
  • Edited Books | 2003
    Stephenson N; Radtke L; Jorna R; Jorna H, (eds.), 2003, Theoretical Psychology: Critical Contributions, Captus Press, York
    Edited Books | 2001
    Morss J; Stephenson N; Van Rappard H, (eds.), 2001, Issues in Theoretical Psychology, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers
  • Journal articles | 2023
    Razzaq A; Stephenson N; Raynes-Greenow C; Travaglia J; Alam NA, 2023, 'Understanding the relationship between the public sector healthcare workers and NGO-based HIV counsellors while providing HIV counselling and testing services to pregnant women: A Qualitative Study in Suva, Fiji', Midwifery, 120, pp. 103634,
    Journal articles | 2023
    Smith C; Vajdic CM; Stephenson N, 2023, 'Centring equity in data-driven public health: a call for guiding principles to support the equitable design and outcomes of Australia's data integration systems', Medical Journal of Australia, 218, pp. 341 - 343,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Sommerville K; Ritter A; Stephenson N, 2022, 'Pill testing policy: A comparative analysis using the Advocacy Coalition Framework', Drug and Alcohol Review, 41, pp. 275 - 284,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Stephenson N; Smith C; Vajdic CM, 2022, 'Health and public sector data sharing requires social licence negotiations', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 46, pp. 426 - 428,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Isangula KG; Seale H; Jayasuriya R; Nyamhanga TM; Stephenson N, 2020, 'What factors shape doctors' trustworthiness? Patients' perspectives in the context of hypertension care in rural Tanzania', Rural and remote health, 20, pp. 5826,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Currie SL; Stephenson N; Palmer AS; Jones BL; Hawkins G; Alexander CL, 2018, 'Erratum: Under-reporting giardiasis; Time to consider the public health implications (Epidemiology and Infection (2017) 145:14 (3007-3011) DOI: 10.1017/S0950268817001959)', Epidemiology and Infection, 146, pp. 408,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Isangula KG; Seale H; Nyamhanga T; Jayasuriya R; Stephenson N, 2018, 'Trust matters: Patients’ and providers’ accounts of the role of trust in hypertension care in rural Tanzania', Tanzania Journal of Health Research, 20, pp. 1 - 15,
    Journal articles | 2018
    Stephenson N; Chaukra S; Katz I; Heywood A, 2018, 'Newspaper coverage of childhood immunisation in Australia: a lens into conflicts within public health', Critical Public Health, 28, pp. 1 - 12,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Currie SL; Stephenson N; Palmer AS; Jones BL; Alexander CL, 2017, 'Under-reporting giardiasis: Time to consider the public health implications', Epidemiology and Infection, 145, pp. 3007 - 3011,
    Journal articles | 2017
    Stephenson N; Mills C; McLeod K, 2017, '“Simply providing information”: Negotiating the ethical dilemmas of pregnancy termination as they arise in the obstetric ultrasound clinic', Feminism & Psychology, 27, pp. 72 - 91,
    Journal articles | 2016
    Flowers P; Davis M; Lohm D; Waller E; Stephenson N, 2016, 'Understanding pandemic influenza behaviour: An exploratory biopsychosocial study', Journal of Health Psychology, 21, pp. 759 - 769,
    Journal articles | 2016
    Race K; Stephenson N, 2016, 'Introduction to Alan Brotherton’s ‘“The Circumstances in Which They Come”: Refiguring the Boundaries of HIV in Australia’', Australian Humanities Review, pp. 39 - 43,
    Journal articles | 2016
    Rowe R; Stephenson N, 2016, 'Speculating on health: public health meets finance in ‘health impact bonds’', Sociology of Health and Illness, 38, pp. 1203 - 1216,
    Journal articles | 2016
    Stephenson N; McLeod K; Mills C, 2016, 'Ambiguous encounters, uncertain foetuses: Women's experiences of obstetric ultrasound', Feminist Review, 113, pp. 17 - 33,
    Journal articles | 2016
    Waller E; Davis M; Stephenson N, 2016, 'Australia’s pandemic influenza ‘Protect’ phase: emerging out of the fog of pandemic', Critical Public Health, 26, pp. 99 - 113,
    Journal articles | 2015
    Davis M; Flowers P; Lohm D; Waller E; Stephenson N, 2015, 'Immunity, Biopolitics and Pandemics: Public and Individual Responses to the Threat to Life', Body & Society, 22, pp. 130 - 154,
    Journal articles | 2015
    Davis MDM; Stephenson N; Lohm D; Waller E; Flowers P, 2015, 'Beyond resistance: Social factors in the general public response to pandemic influenza', BMC Public Health, 15, pp. 436,
    Journal articles | 2015
    Lohm D; Davis M; Flowers P; Stephenson N, 2015, '‘Fuzzy’ virus: indeterminate influenza biology, diagnosis and surveillance in the risk ontologies of the general public in time of pandemics', Health, Risk and Society, 17, pp. 115 - 131,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Davis M; Flowers P; Stephenson N, 2014, 'We had to do what we thought was right at the time: Retrospective discourse on the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in the UK', Sociology of Health and Illness, 36, pp. 369 - 382,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Davis M; Lohm D; Flowers P; Waller E; Stephenson N, 2014, '"We became sceptics": Fear and media hype in general public narrative on the advent of pandemic influenza', Sociological Inquiry, 84, pp. 499 - 518,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Jackson Y; Stephenson N, 2014, 'Neglected tropical disease and emerging infectious disease: An analysis of the history, promise and constraints of two worldviews', Global Public Health, 9, pp. 995 - 1007,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Lohm D; Flowers P; Stephenson N; Waller E; Davis MDM, 2014, 'Biography, pandemic time and risk: Pregnant women reflecting on their experiences of the 2009 influenza pandemic', Health (United Kingdom), 18, pp. 493 - 508,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Nathan S; Braithwaite J; Stephenson N, 2014, 'The scope and impact of community participation: The views of community representatives in an Australian health service', Journal of Health Organization and Management, 28, pp. 405 - 421,
    Journal articles | 2014
    Stephenson N; Davis M; Flowers P; MacGregor C; Waller E, 2014, 'Mobilising "vulnerability" in the public health response to pandemic influenza', Social Science and Medicine, 102, pp. 10 - 17,
    Journal articles | 2013
    Kippax SC; Stephenson N; Parker R; Aggleton P, 2013, 'Between Individual Agency and Structure in HIV Prevention: Understanding the Middle Ground of Social Practice', American Journal of Public Health, 103, pp. 1367 - 1375,
    Journal articles | 2013
    Nathan SA; Braithwaite J; Stephenson N, 2013, 'Facilitating the action of community representatives in a health service: the role of a community participation coordinator', BMC Health Services Research, 13, pp. 154,
    Journal articles | 2013
    Nathan SA; Stephenson N; Braithwaite J, 2013, 'Sidestepping questions of legitimacy: How community representatives manoeuvre to effect change in a health service', Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Health Illness and Medicine,
    Journal articles | 2012
    Ezegbe C; Stephenson N, 2012, 'The reach and limits of the US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) funding of Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV in Nigeria', African Journal of Reproductive Health, 16, pp. 23 - 34,
    Journal articles | 2012
    Ijamakinwa O; Stephenson N, 2012, 'Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Africa at the crossroads', Journal of Public Health in Africa, 3, pp. 116 - 120
    Journal articles | 2012
    Ijamakinwa OC; Stephenson N, 2012, 'Pandemic influenza preparedness: Africa at the crossroads', Journal of Public Health in Africa, 3, pp. 116 - 120,
    Journal articles | 2012
    Kippax SC; Stephenson N, 2012, 'Beyond the distinction between biomedical and social dimensions of HIV prevention through the lens of a social public health', American Journal of Public Health, 102, pp. 789 - 799,
    Journal articles | 2012
    Kippax SC; Stephenson N, 2012, 'Response to Biomedical and Social Dimensions of HIV Prevention by Sevgi O. Aral & James Blanchard', American Journal of Public Health, 102, pp. e9 - e10,
    Journal articles | 2012
    Tsianos V; Papadopoulos D; Stephenson N, 2012, 'This is class war from above and they are winning it. What is to be done?', Rethinking Marxism, 24, pp. 448 - 457,
    Journal articles | 2011
    Davis M; Stephenson N; Flowers P, 2011, 'Compliant, complacent or panicked? Investigating the problematisation of the Australian general public in pandemic influenza control', Social Science and Medicine, 72, pp. 912 - 918,
    Journal articles | 2011
    Stephenson N; Papadopoulos D, 2011, 'Exit from the Regime of Life Control: Biopolitics, Anticipatory Risk and the Excess of Experience', Somatechnics, 1, pp. 412 - 433,
    Journal articles | 2011
    Stephenson N, 2011, 'A Social Public Health', American Journal of Public Health, 101, pp. 1159 - 1159,
    Journal articles | 2011
    Stephenson N, 2011, 'Emerging infectious disease/Emerging forms of biological sovereignty', Science Technology and Human Values, 36, pp. 616 - 637,
    Journal articles | 2010
    Magnani E; Stephenson N, 2010, 'A review of Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977–78', Subjectivity, 3, pp. 211 - 218,
    Journal articles | 2009
    Stephenson N; Jamieson M, 2009, 'Securitising health: Australian newspaper coverage of pandemic influenza', Sociology of Health and Illness, 31, pp. 525 - 539,
    Journal articles | 2009
    Wraith C; Stephenson N, 2009, 'Risk, insurance, preparedness and the disappearance of the population: The case of pandemic influenza', Health Sociology Review, 18, pp. 220 - 233
    Journal articles | 2008
    Diprose RJ; Stephenson N; Mills CJ; Race KD; Hawkins G, 2008, 'Governing the future: The paradigm of prudence in political technologies of risk management', Security Dialogue, 39, pp. 267 - 288,
    Journal articles | 2008
    Stephenson N, 2008, 'From the feminist politics of lived experience to the social spaces of epidemics', Australian Feminist Studies, 23, pp. 531 - 536,
    Journal articles | 2006
    Holt M; Stephenson N, 2006, 'Living with HIV and negotiating psychological discourse', Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Health Illness and Medicine, 10, pp. 211 - 231,
    Journal articles | 2006
    Stephenson N; Kippax SC, 2006, 'Transfiguring relations - Theorizing political change in the everyday', Theory and Psychology, 16, pp. 391 - 415,
    Journal articles | 2006
    Stephenson N; Papadopoulos D, 2006, 'Outside Politics/Continuous Experience', Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 6
    Journal articles | 2006
    Stephenson N, 2006, 'Breaking alignments between `the personal` and `the individual` or What can psychology do for feminist politics now', Feminism and Psychology, 16, pp. 79 - 85,
    Journal articles | 2005
    Stephenson N, 2005, 'Kippax, S. & Stephenson, N. (2005) How to conduct meaningful evaluations of sex and relationship eduation', Sex Education, 5, pp. 359 - 373
    Journal articles | 2005
    Stephenson N, 2005, 'Living History, Undoing Linearity: Memory-work as a Research Method in the Social Sciences', International Journal for Social Research Methodology, 8, pp. 33 - 45
    Journal articles | 2004
    Stephenson N, 2004, 'Elaborating Sociability: the mattering of unspeakable excess', Critical Psychology: the INternational Journal of Critical Psychology, 12, pp. 163 - 186
    Journal articles | 2003
    Stephenson N, 2003, 'Interrupting neo-liberal subjectivities', Continuum : Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 17, pp. 135 - 146
    Journal articles | 2003
    Stephenson N, 2003, 'Rethinking collectivity: Practicing memory-work', Critical Psychology: the INternational Journal of Critical Psychology, 9, pp. 160 - 176
    Journal articles | 2001
    Stephenson N, 2001, '"Speaking as a woman": Agency in intersubjective communication', Australian Psychologist, 36, pp. 19 - 26,
    Journal articles | 1996
    Stephenson N, 1996, 'Mary Crawford: Talking Difference', Feminism & Psychology, 6, pp. 532 - 536,
  • Conference Abstracts | 2016
    Isangula KG; Stephenson N; Seale H; Nyamhanga T; Kapologwe N, 2016, 'Acculturation of trust in a Patient - Doctor Relationship as a tool for improving NCDs/Hypertension service uptake and adherence to medications in low income Africa', in The National Institute for Medical Research:AJSC Program abstract book, The 30th Annual Joint Scientific Conference: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals; Investing Innovative Research to fill the Critical Gaps, Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, pp. 86 - 86, presented at The 30th Annual Joint Scientific Conference: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals; Investing Innovative Research to fill the Critical Gaps, Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 04 October 2016 - 06 October 2016,
    Theses / Dissertations | 2013
    Nathan SA, 2013, What do community representatives want to achieve and how do they operate in a health service context?,
    Conference Papers | 1999
    Stephenson N, 1999, 'Being cliched: Women's talk and feminine subjectivities', in Morss JR; Stephenson N; VanRappard H (eds.), THEORETICAL ISSUES IN PSYCHOLOGY, PROCEEDINGS, KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS, AUSTRALIA, SYDNEY, pp. 241 - 250, presented at 8th Biennial Conference of the International-Society-for-Theoretical-Psychology (ISTP), AUSTRALIA, SYDNEY,

My Research Supervision

Rachel Rowe (Scientia PhD)

Mitchell Burger (Scientia PhD)

Kahabi Isangula (Int RTP PhD scholarship)