HEALTHEARTH Network - Newcastle, Australia - Sonia Freeman

Sonia Freeman graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Newcastle in 1991 after studying Sociology, Medical Anthropology, History and English Literature. Since then, she has brought her qualitative research expertise to a range of transdisciplinary research projects at The University of Newcastle’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Clinical Unit in Ethics and Health Law.

Sonia is currently the Project Manager for research into rural communities’ engagement with industrial development in the coal mining Upper Hunter region of Australia.

With colleagues Linda Connor, Nick Higginbotham and Glenn Albrecht, Sonia has co-authored articles dealing with the social perspectives of human and ecosystem health, including: “Complexity and Human Health: The Case for a Transdisciplinary Paradigm”, (Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 1998); “Environmental Change and Human Health in Upper Hunter Communities of New South Wales” and “Validation of an Environmental Distress Scale (EcoHealth in 2004 and 2006 respectively).

Sonia co-authored several chapters in the textbook, Health Social Science: A Transdisciplinary and Complexity Perspective (Oxford) (2001).