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Professor Carol Thomas

Formerly at Lancaster University

PhD supervision

Disability Studies Sociology of Health and Illness / Medical Sociology (general) Cancer experiences End of lifeand palliative care Patient Experiences of theNational Health Serviceand other health care and therapy services.

Research Interests

Carol is Professor of Sociology, specialising in disability studies and the sociology of health and illness.

Her current research interests are in the following areas:

Disability Studies

  • Carol is a member of the Executive Editorial Board of the international journal Disability and Society - http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/09687599.html, and has published widely in the field.
  • She is the author of Female Forms: experiencing and understanding disability (1999) Buckingham: Open University Press,
  • and Sociologies of Disability and Illness. Contested Ideas in Disability Studies and Medical Sociology (2007) Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

The Sociology of Cancer

  • Carol has a long-standing research interest in the sociology of cancer. She recently directed an ESRC funded research project entitled Narratives of Living and Dying with Cancer: Sociological Perspectives (ESRC ref: RES-000-22-2031).This involved secondary data analysis of interview data collected in the following two research projects (NHS funded), in which she was the principal investigator:
  • The psychosocial needs of cancer patients and their main carers.Download the Research Report as an Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file (1.9MB). Publications arising are available here in either Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobatformat.
  • Patterns and preferences for place of final care and death among terminally ill cancer patients and their carers in the Morecambe bay area. The Executive Summary is available here in either Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobatformat.

Other Research Interests

  • Carol has also researched and published in other fields, including: the nature of care, public health and health promotion, domestic labour and health, and women's health.

Career Details

  • At Lancaster University, Carol joined the Institute for Health Research in 2002, having worked closely with colleagues in the IHR for a number of years from her location in the Department of Applied Social Science at Lancaster University.
  • She has a 1st Class Honours degree in Sociology (University of Sheffield, 1980) and a PhD in Sociology (University of Warwick, 1987).

Additional Information

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