Pharmaceutical Geographies of Self-Managed Sexual Health (PharmaSMaSH) is a major new research project hosted in the School of Geography and funded by UK Research and Innovation from 2024-2029.
People choose to self-manage health treatments when the medical products and treatments that they need are unavailable in their local healthcare system.
At the same time, the expanding digital market in pharmaceutical products is opening up possibilities for new forms of self-managed care, many of them clandestine and unregulated.
How are these developments are re-shaping the geography of healthcare? PharmaSMaSH explores how treatment communities purchase, import and use medicines that are not available locally.
It focuses on three treatment communities who engage in self-managed sexual and reproductive health interventions, together with the pharmaceutical products they use: sex hormones for trans healthcare, antiretrovirals for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and medication abortion pills for termination of pregnancy.
What?
PharmaSMaSH has three key research objectives:
Objective 1: To transform the study of self-managed health and treatment communities by examining connections between groups that are organised around particular treatments and products in the sexual and reproductive health field.
Objective 2: To understand the transnational flow of pharmaceutical products that straddle the boundaries between licit/ illicit and legal/ illegal.
Objective 3: To facilitate knowledge exchange between informal treatment communities and stakeholders in medical and policy areas.
Who?
PharmaSMaSH is led by Dr Sydney Calkin from the School of Geography. The project will be carried out by Dr Calkin and a team of postdoctoral research associates. Later stages of the project will be carried out in association with Dr Roberto Buccafusca the School of Chemistry at QMUL.
Two postdoctoral research associates will join the team immediately to carry out the first work package: these postdoctoral research associates will be responsible for work on antiretrovirals for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and sex hormones for transgender hormone therapy.
The project is overseen by a scientific advisory board of social and medical scientists in the UK and Ireland.
Where?
PharmaSMaSH follows pharmaceutical products and treatment communities as they cross borders. It is not confined to particular countries: the regulatory landscape for pharmaceutical products and treatments changes quickly, as do the treatment communities who emerge to source products and share information. PharmaSMaSH uses the geographical method of 'following the thing', tracing how products circulate.
When?
PharmaSMaSH begins in October 2024. The first two postdoctoral research associates will be hired shortly afterwards. If you are interested in applying to be a part of PharmaSMaSH, please check for job vacancy listings on the QMUL jobs site.
How?
PharmaSMaSH is hosted in the School of Geography at QMUL. It was originally awarded as a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2023; it is now funded through the UK Research and Innovation Horizon Europe Guarantee scheme.
Header photo by Maksim Goncharenok, reproduced under Creative Commons license