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Professor Ama de-Graft Aikins

Professor Ama de-Graft Aikins

Visiting Professor

Department of Methodology

orcid
0000-0001-9215-0134
Connect with me

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Website

Languages
English, Fante
Key Expertise
Applied Social Psychology, Qualitative Methods

About me

I received my PhD in social psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), completed postdoctoral training at the University of Cambridge and have held teaching and research positions at the LSE, University of Cambridge, University College London, and University of Ghana, where I am a tenured professor of social psychology. I was a British Academy Global Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London, between 2019 and 2023.

My research focuses on the social psychology of chronic illness in continental and diaspora African settings. I also have a strong interest in arts and health, the history of psychology in Africa and how both fields intersect with critical theory and African Studies. My research draws on critical psychology principles, applies longitudinal mixed qualitative and arts-based methods in community settings, and is often embedded in interdisciplinary transnational projects on chronic disease risk, experiences and care. I am committed to capacity building in graduate research and have taught, supervised, mentored and examined graduate students based in African, European, American and Australian universities on social science aspects of Africa’s chronic non-communicable disease (NCD) burden.

I am currently principal investigator for the British Academy seed-funded Chronicity and Care in African Contexts Project. The project examines how social responses to chronic conditions can shape public engagement and chronic care interventions in continental and diaspora African communities. A major output of this project is my book, Selling Healing: Creative Arts and Health Communication in Ghana, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in Spring 2025.

Research interests

  • Social psychology of chronic illness in continental and diaspora African settings.
  • Community-based participatory health research
  • Qualitative methods
  • Arts and Health 

Expertise Details

Applied Social Psychology; Chronic Conditions; Global Health; Qualitative Methods

Selected Publications

de-Graft Aikins, A (In Press). Selling Healing: Creative Arts and Health Communication in Ghana. Cambridge University Press. (Spring 2025)

Cornish, F., Breton, N., Moreno-Tabarez, U., Delgado, J., Rua, M., de-Graft Aikins, A., and Darrin Hodgetts, D. (2023) Participatory Action Research. Nature Research Methods Primer. 3:34, 1-14.

Greenhalgh, T., & de-Graft Aikins, A. (2023). Qualitative inquiry and public health science: Case studies from the COVID-19 pandemic. In N. K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln, M. D. Giardina, and G. S. Cannella (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (6th ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

de-Graft Aikins, A., Sanuade, O.A., Baatiema, L., Adjaye-Gbewonyo, K., Addo, J., Agyemang, C. (2023). How chronic conditions are understood, experienced and managed within African communities in Europe, North America and Australia: a synthesis of qualitative studies.  PLoS ONE 18(2): e0277325. 

de-Graft Aikins, A. (2020). ‘Colonial virus’? Creative arts and public understanding of COVID-19 in Ghana. Journal of the British Academy, Vol 8, 401 – 413

de-Graft Aikins, A., Kushitor, M., Boatemaa, S., Sanuade, O., Asante, P.Y., Sakyi, L., Agyei, F., Koram, K., Ogedegbe, G. (2020) Building cardiovascular disease (CVD) competence in an urban poor Ghanaian community: a social psychology of participation approach. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology. 1-22, DOI: 10.1002/casp.2447

de-Graft Aikins, A, Dodoo, F., Awuah, R.B., Owusu-Dabo, E., Addo, J et al. (2019) Knowledge and perceptions of type 2 diabetes among Ghanaian migrants in three European countries and Ghanaians in rural and urban Ghana: the RODAM qualitative study. PLOS ONE 14(4): e0214501. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214501

de-Graft Aikins, A, Wikler D, Allotey, P.,Beisel, U., Cooper, M., Eyal, N. Hausman, D., Lutz, W., Norheim, O, Roberts, E., Vagero, Arrhenius, G., Jebari, K. (2018). Global Health and the Changing Contours of Human Life. International Panel for Social Progress Report. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

de-Graft Aikins, A and Agyemang, C. (Eds) (2016). Chronic non-communicable diseases in low and middle income countries. Oxon: CABI Publishers

Agyemang, C and de-Graft Aikins, A. (Eds). (2014). Culture, Ethnicity and Chronic Conditions: A Global Synthesis. London: Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group.

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