Anna Lavis is a Lecturer in Medical Anthropology in the Social Studies in Medicine (SSiM) Team in the Institute of Applied Health Research.

Her research focuses on developing approaches and solutions to the key 21st century challenge of mental ill-health. Collaborating across academic, policy and clinical interfaces, Anna has led qualitative and mixed-method studies funded by the ESRC; NIHR; NSPCR, Samaritans and Wellcome Trust, exploring lived experiences of eating disorders, self-harm, suicidality and psychosis. She has particular expertise in ethnographic methods, having conducted sustained ethnographic fieldwork in online, clinical and community settings.

Anna's research has conceptual emphases on materiality, specifically the material culture of mental health; concepts, ethics and practices of care; social media, ‘truth’ and the politics of evidence; affect, desire and intimacy. 

She currently leads a programme of work exploring relationships between young people’s mental health and social media, interrogating the harms and benefits of online environments.  She acts as an advisor to Facebook/Instagram on online harms and her research has informed the development of the upcoming online harms legislation. 

She teaches on various programmes, covering topics in qualitative methods and medical sociology/anthropology, as well as undertaking doctoral supervision both at Birmingham and externally. She regularly guest lectures at UCL and accepts invitations for teaching and examining in the UK. She is also an honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University. 

• PhD Medical Anthropology: Goldsmiths, University of London, 2011.
• MRes Anthropology: Goldsmiths, University of London, 2006.
• MSc Social Anthropology: University College London, 2003.
• BA European and Middle Eastern Languages: University of Oxford, 2002 (MA, 2014)

In a range of collaborations across academia, policy, communities, and healthcare, Anna’s work has two core focuses:

1)  Social Media and Online Harms

Anna leads a programme of research into social media and health, with a particular focus on mental health. She directs the Social Media and Health Research Network, which is exploring what it would, could or should mean to 'live healthily' with social media now and in the future. Against this background, her research has explored why people may engage with online eating disorders, self-harm and suicide content, and has interrogated the meanings of ‘care’ and ‘crisis’ at the intersections of online and offline spaces.

She has also researched online misogyny and the ‘Manosphere,’ using online ethnography to explore the many pathways to and from this content and wider forms of radicalisation and violence.

Currently, Anna leads a project on what primary school children do and see online, which will track the impact of the forthcoming ban on the experiences of this younger age group.

Anna has advised a wide range of policymakers, and clinical and educational organisations, on the topic of online harms, as well as various tech platforms.

2)  Lived Experiences of Mental Distress

Anna’s second research focus lies in employing anthropological theory and method to develop approaches and solutions to the key 21st century challenge of mental distress.

Paying attention to the socio-cultural, political and environmental contexts that shape lived experiences, she has conducted extensive research into eating disorders, self-harm, suicidality and psychosis. Threaded through these empirical focuses are conceptual emphases on materiality, specifically the material culture of mental health, and concepts, ethics and practices of care.

Currently Anna leads the UKRI-MRF funded study, An Anthropological Approach to Eating Disorders: Developing an Innovative Socio-cultural Strategy for Research, Treatment and Prevention. This is a collaboration with colleagues at the University of Warwick, Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Partnership Trust, Forward Thinking Birmingham, and a range of people with lived experience and their communities across the Midlands and beyond.

Anna has particular expertise in ethnographic methods, having conducted sustained ethnographic fieldwork in online, clinical and community settings.