International Health Humanities Network Membership

Professor Paul Crawford is the founder and the world’s first professor of the field of health humanities. He directs the Centre for Social Futures at the Institute of Mental Health, The University of Nottingham, UK. He has contributed to policy development in mental health and human care in the UK, advising senior politicians on the importance of the arts and humanities in healthcare, health and wellbeing. He consults on mental health, health care environments, and has spearheaded the notion of creative public health - democratising arts and humanities knowledge and practices to advance health and wellbeing.

Professor Crawford’s work has attracted multiple awards and recognition, not least Fellowships of the Royal Society of Arts, Academy of Social Sciences and Royal Society for Public Health.  His pioneering work in health humanities has attracted multi-million pound research funding from Arts Humanities and Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, ESRC/MRC, UK Research and Innovation, The Leverhulme Trust and British Academy.  He has led numerous AHRC funded research networks related to the arts and dementia, the representation of mental state in literature, and in the broader health humanities.

Professor Crawford has held more than £7m in prestigious research funding and currently leads major AHRC-funded studies: a) The production and evaluation of original animations with Aardman Film, www.whatsupwitheveryone.com to advance mental health literacy among young people (released February 2021). This campaign won Best Design and Content in the 2021 Design Week Awards and reached over 17m people within four months of launch alone; b) A study of Florence Nightingale at home that focuses on domestic health, psychological health and contagion (www.florencenightingale.org). The book from this study won Best Achievement in The People’s Book Prize 2022 and was longlisted for the B.S. Hughes Award for science-related writing. He is also co-investigator for the £1.25m national MARCH network into social and cultural assets for mental health.

Professor Crawford has held multiple visiting professorships or advisory board appointments in the UK and overseas. He has written over 140 publications including peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and books, most recently Mental Health Literacy and Young People (Emerald, 2022), Cabin Fever: Surviving Lockdown in the Coronavirus Pandemic (Emerald, 2021), Florence Nightingale at Home (Palgrave, 2020), The Routledge Companion to Health Humanities (Routledge, 2020) and Humiliation: Mental Health and Public Shame (Emerald, 2019). He is the Lead Editor for the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Health Humanities (Springer, New York) and Commissioning Editor for two series: Arts for Health (Emerald); Routledge Studies in Literature and Health Humanities (Routledge). His book Health Humanities (Palgrave, 2015) is now available in Mandarin (Springer Beijing). His other publications include the following: Evidence-based Health Communication (Open University Press, 2006), Communication in Clinical Settings (Nelson Thornes, 2006), Storytelling in Therapy (Nelson Thornes, 2004), Evidence Based Research (Open University Press, 2003) [Highly Commended, BMA Book Awards 2002] and Politics and History in William Golding: The World Turned Upside Down (University of Missouri Press, 2002).  His novel, Nothing Purple, Nothing Black (Book Guild, 2002) attracted the critical acclaim of fellow writers David Lodge, Roy Porter, Sara Maitland and Paul Sayer and was optioned for film with British film producer Jack Emery (Dramahouse) until his illness halted production. He is currently working with the filmmaker Chi Thai on a new disabilities-related feature film.