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Durham University

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Staff Profile

Professor Sarah Elizabeth Curtis, BA (Hons) (Oxon), DPhil, FBA,FAcSS,FRGS

Professor in the Department of Geography
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Principal Investigator in the Tipping Points Research Project
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 41830
Room number: 234

Contact Professor Sarah Elizabeth Curtis (email at s.e.curtis@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Professor Sarah Curtis is Professor Emerita at Durham University. She is an internationally recognised specialist in the geography of health and wellbeing. Her scholarship explores how and why places matter for human health. Her work concentrates on socio-geographical conditions and processes that are associated with inequalities in health and wellbeing, and risks for physical and mental health, in different contexts,.

As well as contributing to theoretical development of health geography, her work has strong applied and international aspects. Her research has informed and contributed to health policy development and evaluation of health services in the UK, France, Russia, Poland, Canada and the USA.

Sarah Curtis was appointed in September 2006 as Professor of Health and Risk in the Geography department at the University of Durham. From 2012 to 2015 she was Executive Director of the Institute of Hazard Risk and Resilience, where she led strategic development of interdisciplinary research at the University, focused on diverse aspects of hazards and risks in the physical and social environment and how to build resilience to these hazards. 

Sarah has been fully retired since 2016 and continues to carry out collaborative research with colleagues at Durham University Geography Department (in her role as Professor Emerita) and with the Centre for Research in Environment Society and Health at the University of Edinburgh, where she is Honorary Professor. 

In 2014 Sarah Curtis was elected as Fellow of the British Academy, an independent national academy of Fellows elected for their eminence in research and publication. She is also a Fellow and and Chartered Geographer (Founder Member) of the Royal Geographical Society, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Sarah Curtis holds a BA Hons in Geography from Oxford University and DPhil in Urban and Regional Studies from the University of Kent. Before joining Durham University she worked as Professor in Geography at Queen Mary, University of London.

Recent Research Includes:

  • Sarah has been advising a collaborative project, funded by ESRC 2018-2019, involving Universities of Edinburgh, Durham and Newcastle, working on 'Recession and Mental Health in Scotland: Do Personal or Community Factors promote Resilience to Labour Market Change?'. Professor Jamie Pearce at University of Edinburgh is the Principal Investigator.
  • in 2017-18 Sarah was a member of the research team at Durham University which worked on Community Wellbeing as part of the ESRC funded What Works for Wellbeing Programme.
  • Sarah was Principal Investigator for the Leverhulme Trust Programme on Tipping Points based in the Institute of Hazard Risk and Resilience and employing 9 PDRAs in various Departments across the University, which completed in 2015.
  • She was Principal Investigator for the project ‘BIOPICCC - Built Infrastructure for Older People in Conditions of Climate Change.’ 2009 -2012 funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under their ARCC Programme. This has published a toolkit for development of adaptation to climate change which has been widely cited as a valuable planning resource.
  • Research on physical activity and wellbeing in schools (the ‘MOVE’ project) (funded by ESRC), for which Sarah is Co-I directing research by Dr Katie Thomson, PDRA in geography.
  • health impact assessment of urban regeneration schemes, (for the Department of Health, and other agencies).
  • development of healthy public policy (with agencies in Canada and UK).
  • research on how the social and physical environment relates to well-being, resilience and health of adults and children (funded by ESRC and the Nuffield Foundation).
  • research on therapeutic design of psychiatric health care settings (funded by British Academy).
  • international collaborative work on migration, health and wellbeing (supported by ESRC).
  • comparative research on geographical variation in psychiatric service use supported by the Office of Mental Health for New York State, USA. This work has been widely disseminated through her research publications.

Sarah has collaborated through research and consultancy with a number of organisations including local and national agencies in the English National Health Service; the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, England, the Environment Agency, the Cabinet Office Resilient Communities Unit, the Health Protection Agency; The Greater London Authority, the World Health Organisation; the Insitut National de la Santé et Recherche Medicale, France. She has served as: non-executive director of a NHS Community and Mental Health Care Trust; on the Advisory Board for the London Health Observatory; and as board member and advisor for the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy, National Institute of Public Health, Quebec, Canada. She has undertaken review and advisory roles for various national research councils in the UK and internationally.

Sarah Curtis was the Senior Editor, Medical Geography, for the leading international journal Social Science and Medicine (from 2003 - 2012), and she undertakes work for national Research Council committees and evaluation panels in the UK and abroad and was nominated member of the National Scientific Council of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France from 2010-2018. She is a Member of the Society of Social Medicine and a Registered Practitioner of the Academy for Higher Education.

Sarah Curtis is author of several books including: Space, Place and Mental Health (2010) Ashgate.

Research Groups

Department of Geography

Research Projects

Department of Geography

  • Built Infrastructure for Older People’s Care in Conditions of Climate Change (BIOPICCC)
  • Geographical Variation in the Provision and Use of Health Services
  • Migration, Health and Wellbeing: Comparative Perspectives from Britain and France
  • Pathways of Housing Wealth and Well-being: precipitants and consequences of mortgage equity withdrawal in BHPS and HILDA
  • Sources of Resilience to Adverse Social Environments
  • Winners and losers in contrasting labour markets? Socio-economic and spatial inequalities in the population health effects of economic recession and economic growth, BUPA Foundation, £130,000 (2010-2014)

Department of Sociology

  • Built Infrastructure for Older People’s Care in Conditions of Climate Change (BIOPICCC)
  • Extreme events and vulnerable people: Harnessing science to practice

Selected Publications

Authored book

Edited book

Chapter in book

  • Curtis, S. & Hoyez, A.C. (2012). Public Health and Migration. In The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Ness, I., Bellwood, P., Gabaccia, D., Maty Bâ, S., Safitri, S. & Julca, A. Wiley Blackwell.
  • Riva, M. & Curtis, S. (2011). Policy Responses and the Physical Environment. In Geographies of Obesity: Environmental Understandings of the Obesity Epidemic. Pearce, J. & Witten, K. Farnham, Ashgate.
  • Riva, M. & Curtis, S. (2011). The Rural, Material and Social Context of Positive Health in England. In Wellbeing and Place. Atkinson, S., Painter, J. & Fuller, S. Farnham, Ashgate.
  • Curtis, S., Riva, M. & Rosenberg, M. (2010). Health Geography in Public Health. In Companion to Health and Medical Geography. Brown, T., McLafferty, S. & Moon, G. Oxford Blackwell. 325-345.
  • Gesler, W. & Curtis, S. (2007). Application of Concepts of Therapeutic Landscapes to the Design of Hospitals in the UK: The example of a Mental Health Facility in London. In Therapeutic Landscapes. Williams, A. Ashgate. 149-164.
  • Curtis, S. & Cummins, S.C.J. (2007). Ecological studies. In Macro Social Determinants of Health. Galeo, S. USA: Springer. 327-348.
  • Curtis, S. (2007). Geographie sociale et geographie de la sante. In Geographie de la Sante: un Panorama. Fleuret, S. & Thouez, J-P. Paris.: Economica. 26-36.
  • Curtis, S. & Bebbington, A. (2004). Geographical variations in health and welfare and their significance for equity and efficiency in resource allocation. In Long-Term Care: Matching Resources and Needs. Knapp, M., Challis, D., Fernández, J.-L. & Netten, A. Aldershot: Ashgate. 199-218.
  • De Campos, R., Congdon, P., Curtis, S., Gregory, I. N., Rees Jones, I. & Southall, H. (2004). Locality-level mortality and socio-economic change in Britain since 1920: first steps towards analysis of infant mortality variation. In The Geography of Health Inequalities in the Developed World: Views from Britain and North America. Boyle, P. J., Curtis, S., Graham, E. & Moore, E. London: Ashgate.
  • Fagg, J., Curtis, S., Stansfeld, S. & Congdon, P. (2004). Neighbourhood influences on adolescent health in East London. In Featuring the Quality of Urban Life in Contemporary Cities of Eastern and Western Europe. Sagan, I. & Czepczyński, M. Gdańsk-Poznań Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe = Bogucki Scientific Press. 117-124.
  • Curtis, S. (2004). Social exclusion, health and health care; the case of the National Health Service in England. In Geographies and Moralities: International Perspectives on Development, Justice and Place. Lee, R. & Smith, D. Oxford: Blackwell. 79-82.

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Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

  • Health & welfare services: Health inequality
  • Health & welfare services: Geography of Health