Research

 

You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.

Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
 

Books: Research

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Direct and Indirect Consequences of War
Editor:

Drawing on the perspectives of women and children displaced from Ukraine, as well as local authority policy makers and service providers, this book provides a unique view of the direct and indirect consequences of war in Europe.

Part of the Social Determinants of Health series, this book reviews the socio-economic challenges faced by the UK and other European countries and suggests ways that these ‘wicked issues’ should be addressed. It is essential reading for local authorities, national governments and humanitarian organisations.

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Austerity and Life Expectancy in the UK

Life expectancy is about more than just health – it’s about the kind of society we live in. And in the early 2010s, after decades of continual improvement, life expectancy in the UK, USA and many other rich countries stopped increasing. For millions of people it actually declined. Despite hundreds of thousands of extra deaths, governments and officials remained silent.

Combining robust evidence with real-life stories, this book tells the story of how austerity policies caused this scandal. It argues that this shocking and tragic suffering was predictable, caused by a dereliction of duty from those in power.

The book concludes with an optimistic vision of what can be done to restore life expectancy improvements and reduce health inequalities.

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Negotiations, Healthcare, and the Tension of Demedicalization
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Healthcare for transgender people is in crisis. Many of the problems stem from bureaucracies within the health system, limiting conceptualizations of sex and gender, and the requirement for a diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria’.

This book presents a unique argument for full demedicalization of transness as a crucial step towards removing existing barriers to good healthcare. Resisting the current norm of separating sex and gender, it also argues for an understanding of them as necessarily interlinked and co-constructed.

By elevating trans voices and experiences, this book offers a new perspective on transness, medicalization and research methodologies to help trans people, practitioners and policy makers better understand the barriers faced by trans people when seeking healthcare.

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Innovative Research on Leaving Care and Transitions to Adulthood

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY licence.

Young people transitioning out of care towards independence, work and adulthood are on the edge of these phases of life. Considering previously neglected groups of care leavers such as unaccompanied migrants, street youth, those leaving residential care, young parents and those with a disability, this book presents cutting-edge research from emerging global scholars.

The collection addresses the precarity experienced by many care leavers, who often lack the social capital and resources to transition into stable education, employment and family life. Including the voices of care leavers throughout, it makes research relevant to practitioners and policymakers aiming to enable, rather than label, vulnerable groups.

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The State of UK Health Policy

In its 75th anniversary year, this book examines the history, evolution and future of the NHS.

With contributions from leading researchers and experts across a range of fields, such as finance, health policy, primary and secondary care, quality and patient safety, health inequalities and patient and public involvement, it explores the history of the NHS drawing on narrative, evaluative and analytical approaches.

The book frames its analysis around the four key axes from which the NHS has evolved: governance, centralisation and decentralisation, public and private, and professional and managerial.

It will address the salient factors which shape the direction and pace of change in the NHS. As such, the book provides a long-term critical review of the NHS and key themes in health policy.

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Flexible Boundaries
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EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made unpaid care more visible through its absence, while also increasing the need for it.

Drawing on a range of research projects covering Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US, this book documents a broad spectrum of unpaid work performed by residents, relatives, volunteers and staff in nursing homes.

It demonstrates how boundaries between paid and unpaid work are flexible, varying considerably with conditions, time, place and intersectional populations.

By examining the complex labour process within nursing homes, this book provides insight and understanding which will be critical in planning for nursing home care post-pandemic.

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Practices of Care and Contestation

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

What does it mean to love a healthcare system?

It is often claimed that the UK population is unusually attached to its National Health Service and the last decade has seen increasingly visible displays of gratitude and love. While social surveys of public attitudes measure how much Britain loves the NHS, this book mobilises new empirical research to ask how Britain loves its NHS.

The answer delves into a series of public practices – such as campaigning, donating and volunteering within NHS organisations – and investigates how attitudes to the NHS shape patient experience of healthcare. Stewart argues that these should be understood as practices of care for, and contestation about the future of, the healthcare system.

This book offers a timely critique of both the potential, and the dysfunctions, of Britain’s complex love affair with the NHS.

Open access
Lessons from the Crisis of Western Liberalism

What part do the values of growth and prosperity, freedom and justice, security and democracy play in social policy and human welfare? How can we judge the policies offered to us as the recipe for progress?

At a time of global ‘permacrisis’, Sebastian Taylor applies his extensive frontline experience working with health systems and healthcare in the Global North and South to assess the concrete impact of contemporary liberal values on our welfare, development and environmental survival.

Drawing on research from around the world, he uses health as an objective metric to assess how effective these policies are for individuals and society as a whole.

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An International Comparison

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Technology is quickly becoming an integral part of care systems across the world and is frequently cited in policy discourse as pivotal for solving the ‘crisis’ in care and delivering positive outcomes.

Exploring the role of technology in Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan, this book examines how technology contributes effectively to the sustainability of these different care systems which are facing similar emergent pressures, including increased longevity, falling fertility and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It considers the challenges and opportunities of embedding technologies in care systems and the subsequent outcomes for older and disabled service users, carers and the care workforce.

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Global Policies, Narratives and Practices
Author:

The past 30 years have seen risk become a major field of study, most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic positioning it at the centre of public awareness, yet there is limited understanding of how risk can and should be used in policy making.

This book provides an accessible guide to the key elements of risk in policy making, including its role in rhetoric to legitimise decisions and choices.

Using risk as a framework, it examines how policy makers in a range of countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and explains why some were more successful than others.

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