Staff profile

I am a social anthropologist with specialisation in medical anthropology. My research interests include: economies and practices of care; governance; the state; nursing; hospitals; global health interventions (especially around HIV/AIDS and viral haemorrhagic fevers); development; community-based health care; and public health.

Current Research

My current research work is funded by an ERC starting grant, . This project explores changing animal-based economies in Kenya and Sierra Leone, and the implications of human-animal entanglements for health and well being. This project builds on previous research on zoonotic diseases and epidemic management in West Africa, with a particular focus on Lassa fever and Ebola virus disease. It also builds on my longstanding interest in issues around care, health governance, and relationships between insitituions, modes of governance and health systems bureaucracies. I have worked extensively in Kenya where I carried out extended fieldwork with health managers in 2011 and in a hospital and community development organisation between 2005-7. My Ph.D. (Manchester, 2010) explored responses to HIV/AIDS in Western Kenya through the modality of care. Following my Ph.D. I spent two years as a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine before joining the University of һ�������� in January 2013.

• Community-Based Health Care
• East Africa, Kenya
• Epidemics (especially HIV/AIDS and VHFs)
• Global Health and Development
• Health Governance
• Hospitals
• Human animal relations
• Science
• West Africa, Sierra Leone
• Work and Management

• 2023:

  Editorial Board Medical Anthropology Quarterly

  : Editorial Board Medical Anthropology Quarterly
• 2023:

  Member of the Committee for Biosocial Anthropology, Royal Anthropological Institute

  : Member of the Committee for Biosocial Anthropology, Royal Anthropological Institute

Book review

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  Brown, H. (2017). Ebola: How a People’s Science Helped End an Epidemic. The Journal of Development Studies, 53(11), 1962-1963. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2017.1345406

Chapter in book

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  Brown, H. (2019). Complexity, Anthropology and Epidemics. In A. H. Kelly, F. Keck, & C. Lynteris (Eds.), The anthropology of epidemics.. Routledge.
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  Prince, R., & Brown, H. (2016). Introduction: The politics and ethics of voluntary labour in Africa. In R. Prince & H. Brown (Eds.), Volunteer Economies: The politics and ethics of voluntary labour in Africa. James Currey.
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  Brown, H. (2013). "Home-Based Care is not a new thing": Legacies of domestic governmentality in Western Kenya. In R. Prince & R. Marsland (Eds.), Making public health in Africa: Ethnographic perspectives.. Ohio University Press.

Edited book

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  Brown, H., Reed, A., & Yarrow, T. (Eds.). (2017). Meetings: Ethnographies of organizational process, bureaucracy and assembly. John Wiley and Sons.
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  Prince, R., & Brown, H. (Eds.). (2016). Volunteer Economies: The politics and ethics of voluntary labour in Africa. James Currey.

Journal Article

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  Kaiser-Grolimund, A., Bukachi, S. A., Karuga, J., Kämpfen, L., Keck, F., Zinsstag, J., & Brown, H. (2025). Does One Health need an ontological turn?. Critical Public Health, 35(1), Article 2497358. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2025.2497358
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  Brown, H., Odhiambo, A., Mwaki, A., Atieno, N., Ouda, R., & Ngere, I. (2025). Understanding the drivers of poor infection prevention control (IPC) practices in Kenyan health facilities: An interdisciplinary study. PLOS Global Public Health, 5(6), Article e0004404. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004404
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  Brown, H. (2024). Microbial turns. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 30(4), 1144-1147. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14210
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  Jenkins, J., Lawundeh, W., Hanson, T., & Brown, H. (2024). Human-animal entanglements in bushmeat trading in Sierra Leone: An ethnographic assessment of a potential zoonotic interface. PLoS One, 19(3), Article e0298929. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0298929
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  Brown, H. (2023). Nadal, Deborah. Rabies in the streets: interspecies camaraderie in urban India. 278 pp., bibliogr. University Park: Penn State Univ. Press, 2020. £31.95 (paper). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 29(4), 975-976. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14027
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  Zinsstag, J., Kaiser-Grolimund, A., Heitz-Tokpa, K., Sreedharan, R., Lubroth, J., Caya, F., Stone, M., Brown, H., Bonfoh, B., Dobell, E., Morgan, D., Homaira, N., Kock, R., Hattendorf, J., Crump, L., Mauti, S., del Rio Vilas, V., Saikat, S., Zumla, A., … de la Rocque, S. (2023). Advancing One Human-Environmental-Animal Health for Global Health Security: What does the evidence say?. Lancet, 401(10376), 591-604. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736%2822%2901595-1
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  Park, S., Brown, H., Wema, K. M., Gobat, N., Borchert, M., Kalubi, J., Komanda, G., & Morisho, N. (2023). ‘Ebola is a business’: an analysis of the atmosphere of mistrust in the tenth Ebola epidemic in the DRC. Critical Public Health, 33(3), 297-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2022.2128990
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  Hindle, C., McEwan, C., Boliver, V., Maclarnon, A., Simpson, B., & Brown, H. (2021). Experiences of first-generation scholars at a highly selective UK university. Learning and Teaching., 14(2), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2021.140202
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  Brown, H., & Marí Sáez, A. (2021). Ebola separations: trust, crisis, and ‘social distancing’ in West Africa. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 27(1), 9-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13426
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  Ho, L. S., Ratnayake, R., Ansumana, R., & Brown, H. (2021). A mixed-methods investigation to understand and improve the scaled-up infection prevention and control in primary care health facilities during the Ebola virus disease epidemic in Sierra Leone. BMC Public Health, 21(1), Article 1603. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11634-7
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  Brown, H. (2020). Domestic labor as care and growth in western Kenya. Anthropology and Humanism, 45(2), 245-254. https://doi.org/10.1111/anhu.12304
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  Brown, H., & Nading, A. (2019). Introduction: Human Animal Health in Medical Anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 331(1), 5-23. https://doi.org/10.1111/maq.12488
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  Bonwitt, J., Dawson, M., Kaneh, M., Ansumana, R., Sah, F., Brown, H., & Kelly, A. H. (2018). Unintended Consequences of the ’Bushmeat Ban’ in West Africa During the 2013-2016 Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic. Social Science and Medicine, 200, 166-173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.028
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  Bonwitt, J., Kandeh, M., Dawson, M., Ansumana, R., Sahr, F., Kelly, A., & Brown, H. (2017). Participation of women and children in hunting activities in Sierra Leone and implications for control of zoonotic infections. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 11(7), Article e0005699. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005699
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  Brown, H., & Green, M. (2017). Demonstrating development: meetings as management in Kenya’s health sector. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 23(S1), 45-62. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12593
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  Bonwitt, J., Sáez, A., Lamin, J., Ansumana, R., Dawson, M., Buanie, J., Sondufu, D., Borchert, M., Sahr, F., Fichet-Calvet, E., & Brown, H. (2017). At home with Mastomys and Rattus: human-rodent interactions and potential for primary transmission of Lassa virus in domestic spaces. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 96(4), 935-943. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.16-0675
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  Brown, H., Reed, A., & Yarrow, T. (2017). Introduction: towards an ethnography of meeting. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 23(S1), 10-26. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12591
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  Ratnayake, R., Ho, L., Ansumana, R., Brown, H., Borchert, M., Miller, L., Kratz, T., McMahon, S., & Sahr, F. (2016). Improving Ebola infection prevention and control in primary healthcare facilities in Sierra Leone: a single-group pretest post-test, mixed-methods study. BMJ Global Health, 1(4), Article e000103. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000103
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  McMahon, S., Ho, L., Brown, H., Miller, L., Ansumana, R., & Kennedy, C. (2016). Healthcare providers on the frontlines: A qualitative investigation of the social and emotional impact of delivering health services during Sierra Leone’s Ebola epidemic. Health Policy and Planning, 31(9), 1232-1239. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czw055
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  Brown, H. (2016). Managerial relations in Kenyan health care: Empathy and the limits of governmentality. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 22(3), 591-609. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12448
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  Brown, H., & Green, M. (2015). At the Service of Community Development: The Professionalization of Volunteer Work in Kenya and Tanzania. African Studies Review, 85(02), 63-84. https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2015.38
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  Brown, H. (2015). Global health partnerships, governance, and sovereign responsibility in western Kenya. American Ethnologist, 42(2), 340-355. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12134
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  Brown, H., Kelly, A. H., Marí Sáez, A., Fichet-Calvet, E., Ansumana, R., Bonwitt, J., Magassouba, N., Sahr, F., & Borchert, M. (2015). Extending the ‘social’: Anthropological contributions to the study of viral haemorrhagic fevers. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 9(4), Article e0003651. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0003651
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  Brown, H., & Prince, R. (2015). Introduction. Volunteer Labour: Pasts and Futures of Work, Development, and Citizenship in East Africa. 58(2), 29-42.
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  Brown, H., & Kelly, A. (2014). Material Proximities and Hotspots: Toward an Anthropology of Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 28(2), 280-303. https://doi.org/10.1111/maq.12092
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  Brown, H. (2012). Hospital domestics: Care work in a Kenyan hospital. Space and Culture, 15(1), 18-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331211426056
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  Brown, H. (2010). "If we sympathise with them they’ll relax": Fear/respect and medical care in a Kenyan hospital. Medische Antropologie, 22(1), 125-142.

Newspaper/Magazine Article

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  Jenkins, J., Brown, H., Hanson, T., & Lawundeh, W. (2024, June 4). Sierra Leone’s bushmeat markets pose serious health hazards – we studied two for six months to find solutions.

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

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  Billaud, J., Thedvall, R., Sandler, J., Brown, H., Reed, A., & Yarrow, T. (in press). Second virtual meeting on meeting.
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  Billaud, J., Thedvall, R., Sandler, J., Brown, H., Reed, A., & Yarrow, T. (in press). First virtual meeting on meeting.
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  Bonwitt, J., & Brown, H. (2017). PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDS) journal, live “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) chat.
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  Brown, H. (2015). Spotlight: Managing health crises after Ebola.
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  Marí Sáez, A., Kelly, A. H., & Brown, H. (2014). Notes from Case Zero: Anthropology in the time of Ebola.
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  Marí Sáez, A., Kelly, A. H., & Brown, H. (2014). Apuntes sobre el paciente cero: antropología en los tiempos del ébola.
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  Brown, H. (2014). Ebola in focus: Rapid Response Roundtable.

Report

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  Lamarque, H., & Brown, H. (2025). Key considerations: Mpox in the Busia-Malaba border region linking Uganda and Kenya.
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  Lamarque, H., & Brown, H. (2022). Key Considerations: Cross-Border Dynamics Between Uganda and Kenya in the Context of the Outbreak of Ebola, 2022. https://doi.org/10.19088/sshap.2022.043