WELCOME!
The Health Professions, Health Care, and Social Inequality Lab (the HealthCare lab) directed by Dr. Fumilayo Showers, views health care as a key arena of action in our contemporary social world, with profound implications for the policy makers and policies that undergird its functions; the professionals who work within its institutions; and the individuals who seek and receive care. We conduct research that seeks to understand health care systems and services and the lived experiences of workers/trainees and patients/care receivers.
Join Us
Lab members should expect to gain first-hand experience with qualitative research design, interview techniques, and data analysis; to collaborate on research projects and publications; and to present their research at the UConn Frontiers Undergraduate research conference and at various regional sociology and interdisciplinary conferences.
Projects
Current
Current projects undertaken by lab members include examining the structural/systemic, institutional, and micro level factors that shaped the experiences of frontline and non-frontline health care workers during the various waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ongoing
Ongoing projects also explore the ways in which the pandemic provided unexpected opportunities and consequences, while mapping out broad changes to the US health care landscape in a post COVID-19 world.
Other
Other projects explore medical education and migration aspirations among medical students studying in Ghana, West Africa. A recently completed major study explored the nexus of migration and health care work, through a focus on recent West African immigrants to the United States who have become critical as workers in the health and long-term care sectors in the United States.