Staff Contact Directory
Dr Susan Murray
Postgraduate Research & Midwifery
Email: susan_fairley.murray@kcl.ac.uk
Building: JCMB
Tel: 3732
Room: 1.38
Susan F Murray, MA (Hons) Sociology, PhD Social Policy, Adv. Diploma in Higher Education
Background
Dr Murray is a social scientist working on global health policy and health systems issues.
Current responsibilities
Dr Murray manages a portfolio of funded global health research projects conducted in collaboration with international partners including colleagues from the Centre for Social Medicine at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and the American University of Beirut. She is a programme lead for the 'Healthcare workforce, organisation and service delivery' research within the School, which aims to contribute to the understanding of health care systems at national, regional and global levels, particularly with regard to equity, access to care and workforce. She has responsibility for the Development, Health and Human Security Theme in the King's Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Doctoral Training Centre.
Research and teaching interests
Dr Murray has expertise in longitudinal qualitative research methods and in case study approaches that examine micro level experiences of macro level change. Current interests are in the sociology and political economy of healthcare systems in low- and middle-income settings. These include studying effects of healthcare financing forms and reforms on organisation and consumption of healthcare and on health inequalities, and the effects of economic globalisation in the healthcare sector. She also has a long term interest in global maternal health policy. She teaches on social research methods and on global health topics at undergraduate and and postgraduate level and provides doctoral supervision.
Achievements
Dr Murray has over 15 years of international research experience, with collaborations in Chile, Tanzania, Zambia, Burkina Faso, Lebanon, India and the UK. Research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, Hewlett Foundation, DFID, the Wellcome Trust, National Patient Safety Agency, Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity, and the Health Foundation, the Alliance for Health Policy & Systems Research / WHO. She is a visiting senior fellow at LSE Health.
She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals including Social Science and Medicine, Health Policy and Planning, and Sociology of Health and Illness, and is a board member of Globalization and Health.
Additional information
Dr Murray has provided specialist advice or consultancy to the World Health Organization, the UN Millennium Project, Department for International Development (DFID), Norwegian Agency for Development Co-Operation (NORAD), World Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the governments of Kenya, Uganda, Indonesia and Peru.She is a member of the College Academic Board, the ESRC Peer Review College and the Working Group on Health System and Policy Indicators for Countdown to 2015.
Recent publications
Globalisation and Health special collection: Health Systems, health economies and globalization: social science perspectives (Feb 2011) edited by Murray SF, Pitchforth E, Baru R, Bisht R.
Murray SF, Buller AM, Bewley S, Sandall J. (2010) Metrics for monitoring local inequalities in access to maternity care: developing a basket of markers from routinely available data Quality and Safety in Health Care doi:10.1136/qshc.2008.032136
Storeng K. Murray SF, Akoum MS, Ouattara F, Filippi V. (2010) Beyond body counts: a qualitative study of lives and loss in Burkina Faso after 'near-miss' obstetric complications Social Science and Medicine doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.03.056
Sandall J, Benoit C, Wrede S, Murray SF, van Teijlingen ER, Westfall R. (2009) Social Service Professionalism or Market Expert? – maternity relations under neoliberal healthcare reform. Current Sociology 57(4):529-553 doi:10.1177/0011392109104353
Walt G, Shiffman J, Schneider H, Murray SF, Brugha R, Gilson L (2008) 'Doing' health policy analysis: methodological and conceptual reflections and challenges. Health Policy and Planning, 23 (5), 308-17
Rolfe B, Leshabari S, Ruta F, Murray SF. (2008) The crisis in human resources for health care and the potential of a 'retired' workforce: case study of the independent midwifery sector in Tanzania. Health Policy and Planning, doi:10.1093/heapol/ czm049
Murray SF, Buller AM (2007) Exclusion on grounds of language ability - a reporting gap in health services research? Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, 12(4): 205-208
Contact information
Susan F Murray PhD
Reader in International Healthcare
Dept. of Health Policy & Management
Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery
1.38 James Clerk Maxwell Building
London SE1 8WA, UK
+44 (0)20 7848 3732
susan_fairley.murray@kcl.ac.uk
