Andrew Whittingham

Ideology, alcohol and Bradford: the impact of ideology on developing alcohol harm reduction policies for a local population
Supervisors: Dr Jan Rigby and Professor Danny Dorling

Background

Prior to returning to academia, my career has been in the NHS, culminating in a series of senior planning and policy development posts. On leaving the NHS in 1997 I set up and ran a design and manufacture clothing business for a further 5 years. I returned to geography in 2001, obtaining an MA (Distinction) in Human Geography at Leeds University in 2003. I commenced the current ESRC-funded PhD in 2005.

Research

The PhD research is situated within a UK context of rising alcohol consumption and consistently increasing alcohol misuse-related harm; the subsequent response of the government to this problem in creating a national strategy to reduce alcohol harm; and the implementation by Primary Care Trusts of this strategy to reduce alcohol harm at the local level. The research specifically focuses on the implementation process adopted by Bradford South and West PCT.

The research's central aim is to assess the extent to which ideology, as against evidence, is the determining factor in the development and implementation of Bradford South and West Primary Care Trust´s own strategy to reduce alcohol harm within its population. The research also places a key emphasis on examining the way in which individual policy practitioners engaged in this local development process, interpret the specific approach of the national strategy, and how these interpretations impact on the nature of the resultant, local strategy.

Given the incidence of deprivation and health inequality in this population, a specific focus will be placed on examining the ways in which evidence about the relationships between these factors and alcohol harm influence the development of local approaches to reduce alcohol harm. The research also explores the ways in which Zygmunt Bauman's work on poverty and social exclusion can inform and illuminate this research and its outcome.

The research is ESRC CASE funded.