Section: Staff Profiles
Katherine Smith
- Name
- Dr Katherine Smith
- Title
- Lecturer, Global Public Health Unit
- Organisation
- Social Policy, School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh - Address
- 2.25 Chrystal Macmillan Building 15a George Square Edinburgh UK EH8 9LD
- Telephone
- +44 (0)131 651 1461
- Katherine.Smith@ed.ac.uk
- URL
- http://www.socialpolicy.ed.ac.uk/staff/katherine_smith
Qualifications
PhD, University of Edinburgh, 2008; MSc (by Research), University of Edinburgh, 2004; MA (Hons) Geography, University of Edinburgh, 2002.
Background information
Over the past seven years Katherine's main research focus has been the construction, circulation and impact on policy of academic and other 'expert' knowledges. She is particularly interested in policies affecting public health (especially health inequalities), which is connected to her broader concerns with social justice and uneven power relations. Katherine was recently awarded a two-year ESRC-MRC Postdoctoral Fellowship and is currently using this grant to build on previous research exploring the following three issues: (i) the role that different genres of ideas (institutionalised, charismatic and vehicular) play in promoting or restricting policy change: (ii) how policy shapes research activities and the ideas promoted by academics to potential research 'users', including via funding opportunities (and perceptions of those opportunities); (iii) the ways in which large corporations influence policies affecting health outcomes (including by employing 'experts' and research-based ideas).
I regularly review articles for public health and social policy journals and I am currently an Associate Editor of BMC Public Health.
Key research interests:
- Knowledge transfer, particularly between research and policy
- The influence of corporations on public health and policies affecting public health
- Policy responses to health inequalities
- Theories of policy change
- Lobbying in the EU
Teaching
Katherine is a lecturer for the Global Public Health Unit, and lectures on courses in Public Health and Health Inequalities and Social Determinants of Health and Public Policy.
Office hours (semester time only): Fridays 11am - 1pm or by appointment (Katherine.Smith@ed.ac.uk).
Publications
Peer-review Journal Articles:
Weishaar, H., Collin, J., Smith, K.E., Grüning, T., Mandal, S. & Gilmore, A. (in press) Global health governance and the commercial sector: Tobacco company strategies to influence the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. PLoS Medicine.
Shirane, R., Smith, K.E., Ross, H., Silver, K., Williams, S. & Gilmore, A.B. (in press) Tobacco industry influence in the Czech Republic: manipulating tobacco excise tax and tobacco advertising policies. PLoS Medicine.
Bauld, L., McKell, J., Hay, G., Carroll, C. & Smith, K.E. (In press) Benefits and employment: how problem drug users experience welfare and routes into work. Journal of Social Policy.
Smith, K.E. (In press) Institutional Filters: The Translation and Re-Circulation of Ideas about Health Inequalities within Policy. Policy & Politics.
Smith, K.E. (2012) Fools, Facilitators and Flexians: Academic Identities in Marketised Environments. Higher Education Quarterly, 66(2): 155-73.
Smith, K.E. and Hellowell, M. (2012) Beyond Rhetorical Difference: A cohesive account of post-devolution developments in UK health policy. Social Policy & Administration, 46(2): 178-198.
Smith, K.E. & Joyce, K.E. (2012) Capturing Complex Realities - Understanding Efforts to Achieve Evidence-Based Policy and Practice in Public Health. Evidence & Policy, 8(1): 57-78.
Bambra, C., Smith, K.E., Garthwaite, K., Joyce, K.E. Hunter, D.J. (2011) A labour of Sisyphus? Public policy and health inequalities research in the UK from the Black and Acheson Reports to the Marmot Review. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 65: 399-406.
Fooks, G., Gilmore, A.B., Smith, K.E., Collins, J., Holden, C. & Lee, K. (2011) Corporate Social Responsibility and Access to Policy Élites: an Analysis of Tobacco Industry Documents. PLoS Medicine, 8(8): e1001076. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001076.
Bambra, C., Smith, K.E. (2010)"No longer deserving"? Sickness benefit reform and the politics of (ill) health in the UK. Critical Public Health, 20(1): 71-83.
Smith, K.E.(2010) Research, Policy and Funding - Academic treadmills and the squeeze on intellectual spaces. The British Journal Of Sociology, 61(1): 176-195.
Perkins, N., Smith, K.E., Hunter, D. J., Bambra, C., Joyce, K. (2010) "What counts is what works"? New Labour and partnerships in public health. Policy & Politics, 38(1): 101-117.
Joyce, K.E., Smith, K.E., Henderson, G., Greig, G., Bambra, C. (2010) Patient perspectives of Condition Management Programmes as a route to better health, well-being and employability Family Practice, 27(1): 101-109.
Joyce, K.E., Smith, K.E., Sullivan, C., Bambra, C. (2010) 'Most of industry's shutting down up here. . .': Employability initiatives to tackle worklessness in areas of low labour market demand. Social Policy & Society, 9(03):337-363.
Smith, K. E., Gilmore, A. B., Fooks, G., Collin, J., Weishaar, H. (2009) Tobacco industry attempts to undermine Article 5.3 and the "good governance" trap. Tobacco Control,18(6): 509-511.
Smith, K.E., Bambra, C., Joyce, K. E., Perkins, N., Hunter, D. J., Blenkinsopp, E. A. (2009) Partners in health? A systematic review of the impact of organizational partnerships on public health outcomes in England between 1997 and 2008. Journal of Public Health, 31(2): 210-221.
Harrington, B., Smith, K.E., Hunter, D., Marks, L., Blackman, T., McKee, L., Greene, A., Elliott, E., Williams, G. (2009) Health inequalities in England, Scotland and Wales: Stakeholders' accounts and policy compared. Public Health, 123(1): e24-e28.
Blackman, T., Elliott, E., Greene, A., Harrington, B., Hunter, D., Marks, L., McKee, L., Smith, K.E., Williams, G. (2009) Tackling health inequalities in post-devolution Britain: Do targets matter? Public Administration, 87(4): 762-778.
Smith, K.E. (2006) Problematising power relations in "elite" interviews. Geoforum, 37(4): 643-653.
Books:
Smith, K.E. (forthcoming in 2013) Public Health Research & Policy: A Marketplace of Ideas? Contract agreed with Palgrave Macmillan.
Hunter, D.J., Marks, L., Smith, K.E. (2010) The Public Health System in England. Bristol: Policy Press.
Book chapters:
Smith, K.E. & Bambra, C. (in press) ‘British and Northern Irish Experiences’ in Raphael, D. (ed.) Tackling Health Inequalities: Lessons from International Experiences. Toronto: CSPI.
Bambra, C., Smith, K.E. and Kennedy, L. (2008) Politics and Health, Chapter 8 in Naidoo, J. and Wills, J. (eds) Health Studies - An Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 257-286.
Other publications:
International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization (IARC). (In press) Handbook Volume 14 - Effectiveness of Tax and Price Policies for Tobacco Control. IARC: Lyon. [Smith, K.E. was one of the members of the Working Group which authored this handbook].
Smith, K.E., Gilmore, A., Fooks, G. (in press) How and why tobacco companies have been promoting risk assessment in the USA and European Union. Due to bepublished in "Late Lessons from Early Warnings": Some reflections on the Precautionary Principle. Chapter 2 in Late Lessons from Early Warnings Volume 2. The European Environment Agency. Expected publication year 2010.
Mandal, S., Gilmore, A., Collin, J., Weishaar, H., Smith, K.E., McKee, M. (In press) "Block, Amend, Delay": how the tobacco industry sought to undermine the European Union tobacco products directive. [This report is awaiting publication by the funders, the Smokefree Partnership in Brussels.]
Smokefree Partnership (2010) The origin of EU Better Regulation - The Disturbing Truth. Brussels: the Smokefree Partnership. [This report was authored by Smith, K.E. and Gilmore, A. and published by the Smokefree Partnership for a launch event in the European Parliament.]
ASH (2010) The smoke filled room: How big tobacco influences health policy in the UK. London: ASH. [This report is largely based on research undertaken by Smith, K.E., Gilmore, A., Fooks, G., Weishaar, H. and Collin, J.]
Gilmore A, Fooks G, Smith KE, Collin J. Tobacco companies set up smokescreen over lobbying activity. Guardian 20th January 2010.
Smith, K. E. (2009) A Time for New Beginnings. Health Matters, 75, p.39.
Smith, K. E., Gilmore, A., Collin, J., & Fooks, G. (2008) Confidential Briefing: Tobacco industry influence on European Union policymaking: implications for Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Supplied to non-governmental organizations and policymakers in advance of the World Health Organization Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, held in Durban, South Africa in November 2008.
Smith, K.E. (2008) Health Inequalities in Scotland and England: The translation of ideas between research and policy. Ph.D. thesis at the University of Edinburgh.
Joyce, K.E., Smith, K.E., Bambra, C. (2008) 'Tackling worklessness: evaluation of a multi-intervention worklessness and health programme in Sedgefield, County Durham.' Report prepared for Sedgefield Borough Council.
Hunter, D.J., Marks, L. and Smith, K.E. (2007) The Public Health System in England: A Scoping Study. A report commissioned by the NHS Service and Delivery Organisation.
Smith, K.E. (2007) Ideas-based policy? Health Matters 69: p.21.
Topics interested in supervising
I would be keen to supervise PhD applicants focusing on the following topics: theories of policy change, including explorations of the role ideas play in policy development; processes of knowledge transfer, particularly between research and policy; the relationship between research and advocacy in public health; the influence of corporations on public health and broader policies affecting public health; policy responses to health inequalities (including comparative assessments); the policy influence of think tanks; impact assessment and/or risk assessment within policy processes.
If you are interested in being supervised by Katherine Smith, please see the links below for more information:
This page was published on 30 April 2012