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Dr Caroline Ackley

Dr Caroline Ackley (PhD, MA, BA)

Senior Research Fellow in Medical Anthropology
E: c.ackley@bsms.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1273 877817
Location: Ground Floor, BSMS Medical Research Building, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9PX

Area of expertise: Women’s health and community health with a focus on sexual and reproductive health, infectious disease, mental health and stigma, and neglected tropical diseases in SE Asia and the Greater Horn of Africa.

Research areas: Utilising participatory and creative methods, alongside inclusive research practices to work across and through power differentials to facilitate dialogue involving unexpected health stakeholders. Anthropology of the body, ethics and morality, the anthropology of Islam and postcolonial theory to better understand individual and community experiences of health.

Twitter handle: @AckleyCaroline

BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

Biography

Dr Caroline Ackley holds a PhD in Medical Anthropology from UCL and has worked in the Horn of Africa since 2009. Her research is focused on women's health, whether that's life course development, maternal and perinatal experiences, mental health, or experiences living with skin NTDs. She seeks to understand how the influences of power, hegemony, structural violence, and inequality influence women's experiences through a ground-level ethnographic approach. She utilises inclusive research approaches as well as qualitative, participatory, and creative methods. More recently, she aims to use anthropological evidence for engagement with the public and to influence policy.

Caroline's current research with the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Neglected Tropical Diseases focuses on community engagement and involvement practices, as well as experiences of conducting research in fragile and conflict prone settings. Previously she worked on medical anthropology approaches to community engagement in Sudan. As part of her work with the NIHR GHRU she has supervised several 4^th year medical students and MSc in Global Health students.

Caroline was previously based in Harar, Ethiopia from 2017-2019 with LSHTM where she was the lead social scientist for the Hararghe Health Research Partnership, and led the social science component of the Gates funded study Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) in Ethiopia, as well as a Wellcome Trust funded study on stillbirth. She led a photo-voice project with mothers aimed at changing the narrative on health in the community by showcasing the ways women keep their children healthy and strong. She also led a Theatre for Development project where community members engaged in public discussion on causes of stillbirth.

Caroline explored women's life course development in Somaliland as part of her PhD studies from 2013-2018. She conducted 18 consecutive months of fieldwork in Hargeysa, Somaliland exploring women's life course as an entanglement of moralities, time, and selves. She ethnographically explored the relationships women have with their bodies, other women in the community, the divine, and their husbands. She was privy to discussions between religious leaders and female activists on the morality, religion, and policies surrounding female genital cutting. Caroline attended family and marriage classes called Qoys Kaab for young, unmarried women to prepare themselves for the next steps in their lives. She also joined a a mystical women's prayer group where we celebrated the powerful women of Islam through pilgrimages, chanting, and dance.

Research

Caroline's research sits at the intersection of medical anthropology and global health. She has a particular interest in women's health with expertise in anthropological and qualitative methods in interdisciplinary settings. She enjoys working on participatory and creative research projects, and has partnered with local community groups in the Horn of Africa and in Brighton on several projects.

Current research

NIHR Global Health Research Unit on NTDs
I am currently working on two strands of research in the NIHR GHRU. The first is a study on community engagement and involvement (CEI) in practice. I am collecting case studies from Unit practitioners in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Sudan. The second study is on conducting and sustaining research in a crisis. I am collecting data from Unit professional staff and researchers on their experiences and activities of doing research during the war in Sudan and conflict in Ethiopia.

Public and Community Engagement Fellow with the Sussex Knowledge Exchange and Impact Programme
Project title: Connecting Communities: Intergenerational Engagement Through Film
This project engages three generations in themes of belonging and life in Britain through film. It brings early years children, young people, and older people together to creatively explore social challenges that affect them.

Inclusive Research Training Project for People Affected by Leprosy
With The Leprosy Mission India and Great Britain, this project trains persons with lived experience of leprosy living in India on principles of social action research. It enables them to develop their own project, apply for ethical approval, conduct their own research, analyse it, and present in different forums. Further, through the project the core TLM-India staff involved in the project will receive ToT training and support to enable them to facilitate similar training and research projects for future cohorts of peer researchers.

‘Dear Britian, …’: Young, unaccompanied asylum seekers use documentary film to tell their stories
In collaboration with the Bright Foundation, East Sussex County Council, and the Virtual School for Children in Care we aim to use documentary film making as a medium for young, unaccompanied asylum seekers to tell a story. 14–16-year-olds will learn the skills and techniques of documentary film making and editing, and after a series of workshops will make a film to be publicly screened. Funded by the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing.

Selected previous research

The ‘good enough’ Other-mother: experiences of early motherhood for non-gestational mothers in same-sex couples in Brighton
In collaboration with Mother Nurture, a 10-week therapeutic course for new mums, this project explored the possibilities and limits of the ‘good enough’ mother amongst non-gestational mothers, or the Other-mother, in same-sex couples. Photovoice aided exploration of feeling ‘good enough’ alongside therapeutic workshops to develop long term support. Funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Impact Acceleration Account (IAA).

Intersecting Stigmas: addressing stigma through public engagement
Through the Sussex Researcher Led Initiative Fund this initiative brought together academics from BSMS and the Stigma Working Group with the public through the medium of film to address stigma. We screened short films on the topic of stigma related to migration and refugee experience to schools and community settings in Brighton and Hove.

PEDAL: Lamivudine (3TC) plus dolutegravir (DTG) dual-therapy: a study on patients’ experiences and perceptions
The project explored patients’ experiences and perceptions of two and three drug regimes to treat HIV in Brighton, UK. https://www.pedalstudy.org.uk/.

Child Health and Mortality Prevention (CHAMPS)
A Bill and Melinda Gates funded six country study in partnership with Emory University and LSHTM aimed at understanding and preventing child and maternal deaths. Worked closely with a multidisciplinary team consisting of paediatricians, obstetricians, nutritionists, epidemiologists, microbiologists, and lab pathologists.

BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

Teaching

Caroline currently teaches on the MSc in Global Health course at BSMS and supervise MSc students. She supervises Year 4 medical students on their Individual Research Projects (IRP). She also supervises one PhD candidate in Global Health as part of the NIHR Global Health Research Unit for Neglected Tropical Diseases. Finally, she is on two Annual Progression Review (APR) committees for PhD candidates in Global Health and Dementia Studies.

Caroline is interested in working with students who would like to utilise qualitative, participatory, or creative methods that engage marginalised, vulnerable, and underrepresented communities. She welcomes interest from students who would like to understand and break-down hierarches while taking a decolonising approach to their discipline. She is particularly keen to collaborate with students who would like to engage in the fields of medical anthropology, women's health, maternal health, child health, skin NTDs, and refugee studies.

Selected publications

Degefa, K., Aliyi, M., Ackley, C. et al. Child mortality in Eastern Ethiopia: acceptability of Postmortem minimally invasive tissue sampling in a predominantly Muslim community. BMC Public Health 24, 3589 (2024).https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-21164-7

Alderton, Dasha L., Caroline Ackley, and Mei L. Trueba. 2024. ‘The Psychosocial Impacts of Skin-Neglected Tropical Diseases (SNTDs) as Perceived by the Affected Persons: A Systematic Review’. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 18 (8): e0012391. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0012391.

Ackley, Caroline, Victoria Hall, Eiman S. Ahmed, et al. 2024. ‘Qualitative Protocol to Support Detection of the Early Presentation and Diagnosis of Mycetoma in Sudan’. Frontiers in Tropical Diseases 5 (July). https://doi.org/10.3389/fitd.2024.1288495.

Madrid L, Alemu A, Seale AC, Oundo J, Tesfaye T, Marami D, Yigzaw H, Ibrahim A, Degefa K, Dufera T, Teklemariam Z, Gure T, Leulseged H, Wittmann S, Abayneh M, Fentaw S, Temesgen F, Yeshi MM, Dubale M, Girma Z, Ackley C, Damisse B, Breines M, Orlien SMS, Blau DM, Breiman RF, Abate E, Dessie Y, Assefa N, Scott JAG; CHAMPS Ethiopia Study Group. Causes of stillbirth and death among children younger than 5 years in eastern Hararghe, Ethiopia: a population-based post-mortem study. Lancet Glob Health. 2023 Jul;11(7):e1032-e1040. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00211-5. Epub 2023 Jun 1. PMID: 37271163; PMCID: PMC10282072.

Ackley, Caroline, Diego Garcia Rodriguez, and Giovanni Villa. 2023. “I Didn’t Notice That You Were Watching Me”: Exploring a User Acceptance Study to Conduct Cultural Domain Analysis Online During the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231164602.

Ackley, Caroline, Abbeishna Sabesan, and Sophia Stone. ‘An Exploration into the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Maternal Mental Health in High-and Middle- Income Countries with a Case Study in East Sussex’. Preprint, medRxiv, 3 November 2023. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.11.02.23298002.

Nasr Elsheikh M, Ackley C, Hall V and Zaman S. ‘Because people here are ignorant’: The failure of a community intervention to prevent mycetoma in Sudan [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]. NIHR Open Res 2023, 3:2 https://doi.org/10.3310/nihropenres.13330.1.

Degefa, K., Tadesse, A., Ackley, C. et al. Using traditional healers to treat child malnutrition: a qualitative study of health-seeking behaviour in eastern Ethiopia. BMC Public Health 22, 873 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13323-5.

Ackley Caroline, Ketema Degefa, Eyoel Taye, Nega Assefa, Mohamed Aliyi, Getahun Wakwaya. Things That Take from People’s Bodies: Rumours about Minimally Invasive Tissue Sampling and Evil Spirits in Ethiopia. Nordic Journal of African Studies. Vol 31, No 3 (2022) pg. 207-223. DOI:10.53228/njas.v31i3.925

Ackley Caroline, Elsheikh M, Zaman S (2021) Scoping review of Neglected Tropical Disease Interventions and Health Promotion: A framework for successful NTD interventions as evidenced by the literature. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 15(7): e0009278. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0009278

Roelen, Keetie, Ackley, Caroline, Boyce, Paul, Farina, Nicolas and Ripoll, Santiago (2020) COVID-19 in LMICs: the need to place stigma front and centre to its response. European Journal of Development Research. ISSN 0957 8811. https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/15690

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