Dr Sarah Earthy

Biography

Dr Sarah Earthy is a Senior Lecturer in Community and Health in the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing. She is a sociologist with a particular interest in the sociology of health and illness, community and social inequality.  She joined the University of Winchester in 2015 from the Department of Sociology at Surrey University. Prior to academia, she worked in various posts in the Department of Health, undertook freelance work for district health authorities on aspects of service planning and worked on the alcohol education and older people's programmes at the Health Education Authority. 

Sarah's PhD research was a comparative study of social capital and social exclusion in an urban and rural context. Her more recent research has explored experiences of illness and injury and aspects of community including service evaluations for Winchester Basics Bank and New Forest Mencap. She specialises in qualitative research methods and narrative research. She has considerable teaching experience at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and supervises doctoral research in health and community.

Externally funded research projects have included: 

• Co-investigator on Engage, Listen, Act: How to Meet the Needs of People with Learning Disabilities in the New Forest and Surroundiing Areas funded by the National Institute for Health and Social Care Research, Applied Research Collaboration Wessex, Clinical Research Network. 2023-24

• Co-organiser of a Symposium on the Meanings of Recovery, University of Surrey, 11-12 July 2016. Funding from the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness.

• Co-investigator on the Injury on Duty Project funded by the Police Dependents’ Trust. 2015-2016

• Co-investigator on ESRC Research Grant (ES/K006037/1) Getting back to normal? Patients’ experiences and expectations following major illness or injury. 2013-2015

• Co-investigator on the Impact of Injuries Study funded by the NIHR Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire CLAHRC. 2011-2013

Publications

Harrison, R. A. and Earthy, S. (2024) Engage, Listen, Act: How to meet the needs of people with learning disabilities in the New Forest and surrounding area. A report commissioned by Mencap New Forest.

Kellezi, B., Earthy, S., Sleney, J., Beckett, K., Barnes, J., Christie, N., Horsley, D., Jones, T. and Kendrick, D. (2020) What can trauma patients’ experiences and perspectives tell us about the perceived quality of trauma care? A qualitative study set within the UK National Health Service, Injury, 51 (5): 1231-1237. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.injury.2020.02.063

Christie, N., Beckett, K., Earthy, S., Kellezi, B., Sleney, J., Barnes, J., Jones, T. and Kendrick, D. (2016) Seeking support after hospitalisation for injury: a nested qualitative study of the role of primary care, British Journal of General Practice, 66 (642): e24-e31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp15X688141

Earthy, S., Cuncev, A. and Cronin, A. (2016) ‘Narrative Analysis’ in N. Gilbert and P. Stoneman (eds) Researching Social Life, 4^th edition, London: Sage.

Kellezi, B., Beckett, K., Earthy, S., Barnes, J., Sleney, J., Clarkson, J., Regel, S., Jones, T. and Kendrick, D. (2014) Understanding and meeting information needs following unintentional injury: comparing the accounts of patients, carers and service providers, Injury, 46 (4): 564-571. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.injury.2014.11.035  

Beckett, K., Earthy, S., Sleney, J., Barnes, J., Kellezi, B., Barker, M., Clarkson, J., Coffey, F., Elder, G. and Kendrick, D. (2014) Providing effective trauma care: the potential for service provider views to enhance the quality of care (qualitative study nested within a multicentre longitudinal quantitative study), BMJ Open, 4 (7). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen.2014.005668  

Sleney, J., Christie, N., Earthy, S., Lyons, RA., Kendrick, D. and Towner, E. (2014) Improving recovery - Learning from patients' experiences after injury: A qualitative study, Injury, 45 (1): 312-319. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.injury.2012.12.025

Earthy, S. and Cronin, A. (2008) ‘Narrative Analysis’ in N. Gilbert (eds) Researching Social Life, 3^rd edition, London: Sage.

Earthy, S. (2005) Social capital, social exclusion and understandings of community in an urban and a rural context, PhD thesis, University of Surrey, UK.

Conference presentations and posters

Earthy, S., Sleney, J. and Thomas, H. (2016) ‘Narratives of recovery from serious illness and injury: core narratives and missing scripts’. Paper presented to the 16^th Biennial Congress of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology, Geneva, Switzerland, 29^th June 2016.

Earthy, S. (2016) ‘Narrative Methods in Health Research’. Keynote presentation at pre-conference workshop for PhD students and early career researchers, 16^th Biennial Congress of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology, Geneva, Switzerland, 27^th June 2016.

Thomas, H., Earthy, S. and Sleney, J. (2015) ‘After ICU: the longer-term experiences of patients following discharge’. Poster presented at the State of the Art Intensive Care Society Conference, London, UK, 7^th-9^th December 2015.

Thomas, H., Earthy, S. and Sleney, J. (2015) ‘Temporal landscapes in patients’ expectations and experiences of recovery from serious illness or injury’. Paper presented at the BSA Medical Sociology Group Conference, York University, UK, 10^th Sept 2015.

Earthy, S., Sleney, J., McNeilly, E. and Thomas, H. (2015) ‘Getting back to normal? Recovery in the context of serious physical illness or injury’. Invited presentation to the BSA Postgraduate Symposium: Uncertain Futures in Health and Illness, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, 8^th May 2015.

Earthy, S., Sleney, J., McNeilly, E. and Thomas, H. (2015) ‘Patients’ worries about money, work and relationships during recovery from a serious physical illness or injury’. Paper presented at the RCN International Nursing Research Conference 2015, Nottingham, UK, 20^th April 2015.

Thomas, H., Earthy, S. and Sleney, J. (2014) ‘Recovery as work: the tasks of the patient in ICU and beyond’. Poster presented at the State of the Art Intensive Care Society Conference, London, UK, 8-12 December 2014.

Sleney, J., Earthy, S., and Thomas, H. (2014) ‘Patients’ perceptions of a Changing Body: Coming to terms with heart attack’. Poster presented at the Physiotherapy UK conference, Birmingham, UK, 10-11 October 2015.

Earthy, S., Thomas, H. and Sleney, J. (2014) ‘Expectations and experiences of recovery in the context of leukaemia’. Paper presented at the BSA Medical Sociology Group Conference, Aston University, Birmingham, UK, 11 Sept 2014.

Earthy, S., Sleney, J. and Thomas, H. (2014) ‘Social patterning of recovery from physical illness: patients' experiences of heart attack and leukaemia’. Paper presented at the 15^th Biennial Congress of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology, Helsinki, Finland, 28 August 2014.

Thomas, H., Earthy, S. and Sleney, J. (2014) ‘The social relations of recovery following admission to intensive care’. Paper presented to roundtable session, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, USA, 17 August 2014.