Staff Members

Dr Rachel Casiday, BA MSc PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Integrated Health Care Research in the Medicine, Pharmacy and Health, School of

Member of the Department of Anthropology

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for Integrated Health Care Research

Biography

Rachel Casiday joined the Centre for Integrated Health Care Research in 2005. She holds a PhD in medical anthropology from Durham University and an undergraduate background in chemistry. Her PhD research investigated the ways that UK parents conceptualised risk and made decisions about the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. She is currently working on a number of projects focusing on the social contexts of health risks, and their significance for health care and policy. These include a quantitative and qualitative study of cardiovascular risk and health-seeking behaviour in the North East of England, an evaluation of the new Smoke Free North East Office (funded by the National Prevention Research Initiative), a study of lay and physician beliefs about irritable bowel syndrome (including concerns about IBS symptoms representing more serious conditions), and a study of household food allocation and management of children’s health care in Niger during a time of famine.

Selected Publications

Books: reviews

Casiday, RE (2005). Review of 'Dorothy Nelkin and M. Susan Lindee. The DNA mystique: The gene as a cultural icon'. Journal of Biosocial Science 37(2): 254-255.
Casiday, RE (2004). Review of 'Daniel Moerman. Meaning, medicine and the placebo effect; Susan Reynolds Whyte, Sjaak van der Geest, and Anita Hardon. Social lives of medicines'. Journal of Biosocial Science 36(5): 631-632.

Edited works: conference proceedings

Casiday, RE (2005). Cultural consensus in the study of human biology (abstract). Society for the Study of Human Biology (proffered papers meeting).
Casiday, RE (2003). Introducing doubt? An ethical dilemma in research on risk (abstract). Society for the Study of Human Biology (proffered papers meeting).
Casiday, RE (2002). Does Early Infant Feeding Behaviour Relate to Subsequent Feeding Mode and Weight Gain? Data from a UK Population-Based Cohort Study (abstract). Society for the Study of Human Biology (proffered papers meeting).
Frey, RF, Casiday, RE, Gilbertson, M & Holten, D (1999). The visual process and spectroscopy (abstract).

Journal papers: academic

Casiday, R (2007). Children's health and the social theory of risk: Insights from the British measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) controversy. Social Science and Medicine 65(5): 1059-1070.
Casiday, RE, Cresswell, T, Wilson, D & Panter-Brick, C (2006). A survey of UK parental attitudes to the MMR vaccine and trust in medical authority. Vaccine 24(2): 177-184.
Casiday, R (2006). Uncertainty, parental decision-making, and trust: Lessons for effective information provision from the MMR controversy. Community Practitioner 79(11): 354-357.
Herman, C, Casiday, R, Deppe, RK, Gilbertson, M, Spees, WM, Holten, D & Frey, RF (2005). Interdisciplinary, application orientated tutorials: design, implementation and evaluation. J Chem Edu 82: 1871.
Casiday, RE (2005). Risk and trust in vaccine decision making. Durham Anthropology Journal 13(1).
Casiday, RE, Wright, CM, Panter-Brick, C & Parkinson, K (2004). Do early infant feeding patterns relate to breast-feeding continuation and weight gain? Data from a longitudinal cohort study. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 58(9): 1290-1296.
Casiday, RE, Holten, D, Krathen, R & Frey, RF (2001). Blood-chemistry tutorials: Teaching biological applications of general chemistry material. Journal of Chemical Education 78: 1210.

Other media: research equivalent

Casiday, RE (2004). Medical Anthropology (on-line MA-level course).

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Research Groups

Department of Anthropology

Medical Anthropology Research Group