As the CPC states, its research mission is “driven by a belief in the value of the big picture. The CPC aims to look at problems from all angles, with the ultimate goal of creating healthier, more sustainable communities by looking for solutions at the junctions between disciplines.”

We created the health humanities node to function as a platform for innovative humanities, arts, social, and health sciences scholars, medical, health and social care professionals, voluntary sector workers and creative practitioners to join forces with informal and family carers, service-users and the wider self-caring public to explore, celebrate and develop new approaches in advancing health and wellbeing through the arts and humanities in hospitals, residential and community settings.

Our health humanities research group will offer a complementary and constructively critical paradigm and set of approaches to understanding health, its meanings, communication, and promotion – as well as its social, cultural, political, ethical, and spiritual dimensions and contexts. This node extends the innovation and reach of the Health Communication program, I supervise in my capacity in the Department of Media and Communications as well as the scholarship undertaken in the health and medical humanities within other units at the university and elsewhere. This will provide a strong platform for collaborations, and major projects between arts, social science and humanities scholars and the Charles Perkins Centre.

In order to better network with global partners, I have joined the advisory board of the International Health Humanities Network, the global platform for innovative humanities scholars. We are also working on intensifying our outreach efforts with the University of Nottingham, Health Humanities Group as well as the Institute for Health Communication at the University of Fudan, China.

For more details about the research group, visit our page on the Charles Perkins Centre: CPC-Health Humanities.

For more information about the CPC itself, visit: http://sydney.edu.au/perkins/

We also run a LinkedIn group: Health Humanities Australia