Professor Gareth Williams - Co-Chair AWARD SE Wales

Gareth Williams is a professor in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. He is a medical sociologist by background and worked at Manchester Medical School and Salford University (Sociology Department and Public Health Research and Resource Centre) before coming to Cardiff in 1999. His main areas of interest are: health inequalities and the determinants of health; long-term illness and economic inactivity; health policy and health services organization; the relationship between lay and professional expertise; and methodological innovation.

Education and Qualifications
PhD (1984): Interpretation and Compromise: Coping with the Experience of Chronic Illness, University of Manchester, Department of Sociology
MSc (with distinction) Sociology as Applied to Medicine, University of London, 1979
BA (Hons) 2.1 Social Sciences, Polytechnic of Central London, 1977

Employment
2004 – Professor of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University
2004 – Associate Director, Cardiff Institute for Society Health and Ethics, Cardiff University
2004 – Deputy Director, Regeneration Institute, Cardiff University
2003 – Director, Welsh Health Impact Assessment Support Unit, Cardiff University
2002 – Acting Director, SE Wales section of the All Wales Alliance for Research and Development in Health and Social Care (AWARD)
2000 – 2004 Deputy Director (Research), School of Social Sciences
1999 – 2004 Professorial Fellow, School of Social Sciences
1996 – 1999 Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Salford
1994 – 1999 Deputy Director, Public Health Research and Resource Centre, University of Salford
1994 – 1996 Reader in Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Salford
1991 – 1994 Senior Research Fellow in the Sociology of Health and Illness, University of Salford
1989 – 1991 Lecturer in Sociology as applied to Medicine, University of Manchester
1980 – 1989 Medical Sociologist, ARC Epidemiology Research Unit, University of Manchester
1979 – 1980 Research Assistant, Policy Studies Institute, London

Selected Publications
Fone DL, Dunstan FD, Lloyd K, Williams G, Watkins J, Palmer SR. (2007) ‘Does social cohesion modify the association between area income deprivation and mental health? A multilevel analysis’. International Journal of Epidemiology, (published February 28 2007), pp 1-8.

Davies, J., Lester, C., O’Neill, M. and Williams, G. (in press 2007) Sustainable participation in regular exercise among older people: developing an action research approach’, Health Education Journal

Fone, D., Dunstan, F., Williams, G., Lloyd, K. and Palmer, S. (2007) ‘Places, people and mental health: a multi-level analysis of economic inactivity’, Social Science and Medicine, 64, 633-645

Williams, G (2006) Health Knowledge, Cambridge: Polity Press
Williams G. (in press) History is what you live: understanding health inequalities in Wales, in: P. Michael and C. Webster (Eds.) Health and Society in Twentieth Century Wales, University of Wales Press

O’Neill, M and Williams, G, (2004) ‘Developing community and agency engagement in an action research study in south Wales’, Critical Public Health, 14, 1

Elliott, E and Williams, G. (2004) Developing a civic intelligence: local involvement in health impact assessment, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 24, 231-243

Gatrell, A., Berridge, D., Bennett, S., Bostock, L., Thomas, C., Popay, J., and Williams, G. (2004) Local geographies of health inequalities, in: Boyle P.J. et al (Eds.) The Geography of Health Inequalities in the Developed World, Ashgate Press

Elliott E., Williams G. and Rolfe B. (2004) The role of lay knowledge in HIA, in: J. Kemm, J. Parry and S. Palmer (Eds) Health Impact Assessment, Oxford University Press

Popay, J., Bennett, S., Thomas, C., Williams, G., Gatrell, A. and Bostock, L. (2003), Beyond ‘beer, fags, egg and chips’? Exploring lay understandings of social inequalities in health, Sociology of Health and Illness, 25, 1-23

Williams, G.H. ( 2003) The determinants of health: structure context and agency, Sociology of Health and Illness, 25, 131-154

Popay, J., Thomas, C., Williams, G., Bennett, S., Gatrell, A., and Bostock, L (2003). A proper place to live: health inequalities, agency and the normative dimensions of space, Social Science and Medicine, 57, 55-69

Recent Research Awards
Randomised controlled trial of a schools-based peer-led smoking intervention, Medical Research Council, 2001 – 2005 (with Bloor M, Moore L, Campbell R and others), £1.2 million

Providing and all-Wales policy and service related research support network for health and social care, Welsh Office for R&D, 2003 – 2008 (with others), £1.1 million

Tackling health inequalities in three contrasting ‘post-industrial’ communities in south Wales: building community-based, multi-agency interventions, National Assembly for Wales, 2000 – 2005 (with others), £400K

Housing and neighbourhood and health, Medical Research Council, 2001 – 2004 (with Palmer, S., Jones, P. and others), £450K

Welsh health impact assessment support unit, National Assembly for Wales, 2002 – 2006, £140K