Dr Richard Green
Academic and research departments
School of Health Sciences, Surrey Institute for People-Centred Artificial Intelligence (PAI).About
Biography
Richard was awarded a prestigious Surrey Future Fellowship in April 2023 to work with interdisciplinary colleagues from the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI and across the university develop a programme of research on the use of 'carebots' (chatbots and other artificial technologies) to support the health and wellbeing of older adults. Prior to this role, Richard was working as a Research Fellow project managing The PALLUP Study - Improving home based palliative care for frail elders and his current fellowship continues and extends his research into the health and wellbeing of older adults in later life.
Richard completed a BSc in Criminology and Sociology at Royal Holloway University and then an MSc in Social Research Methods at the University of Surrey, before completing his PhD in Sociology in partnership with both universities on an ESRC studentship. Before joining the PALLUP study, he worked at the Office for National Statistics as a Senior Research Officer, working on facilitating research access to secure data for research serving the public good.
Richard's PhD explored men's experiences following treatment for prostate cancer in a qualitative interviewing study. His primary research interests fit within the social study of health and illness, with particular interests in themes including ageing, intersectionality, chronic illness and multimorbidity, and digital technologies. He welcomes contact about his research and from those interested in pursuing doctoral study.
Publications
This article explores men’s experiences following treatment for prostate cancer through the lens of chronic illness. Recent empirical work suggests prostate cancer may be better understood as a chronic illness. Prostate cancer offers a case study to examine how older men’s masculinities are disrupted by chronic illness experience. Qualitative interviews with 29 men, recruited from two prostate cancer support groups, explored prostate cancer and post-treatment experiences. Men’s experiences are examined by drawing on the works of Steve Robertson and Kathy Charmaz for understanding masculinities in relation to health and illness. Aspects of chronic illness experience are identified in men’s accounts, particularly concerns with loss of moral status resulting from ongoing and potentially stigmatising treatment side effects. Four forms of moral positioning are identified that align with Steve Robertson’s empirically derived model theorising the relationship between health and hegemonic masculinity. These findings facilitate discussion of the interaction between chronic illness experience, morality and masculinities, providing insight into how older men maintain their masculinity in the wake of illness.
This article examines men’s prostate cancer experiences through the lens of patient expertise. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 29 men treated for prostate cancer, recruited from two prostate cancer support groups (PCSGs) in the South-East of England. Different forms of expertise, as classified by Collins, were found to be possessed by these men. How these different forms of expertise were acquired, used, and shared with others are explored, and a concept of communal licensing is posited to better understand these activities. The acquisition and usage of these different forms of expertise, through the employment of moral discourses that emphasise responsibility for one’s own health, are found to serve to blur the boundaries between lay person and expert.
Background:
Older people living with multimorbidity are projected to become the main recipients of palliative care in the coming decades, yet there is limited evidence regarding their expressed palliative care needs to inform person-centred care.
Aim:
To understand the palliative care needs of community-dwelling people aged ⩾60 living with multimorbidity in the last 2 years of life.
Design:
A scoping review following Arksey and O’Malley.
Data sources:
Three international electronic databases (CINAHL, Ovid Medline, PsycINFO) were searched from March 2018 to December 2021. Reference lists were hand searched. Eligible papers were those reporting empirical data on older people’s needs.
Results:
From 985 potential papers, 28 studies were included, published between 2002 and 2020; sixteen quantitative, nine qualitative and three mixed methods. Data were extracted and presented under the holistic palliative care domains of need: physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and additionally practical needs. Different measurement tools (n = 29) were used, of which 20 were multidimensional. Primacy in reporting was given to physical needs, most commonly pain and function. Social and practical needs were often prioritised by older people themselves, including maintaining social connections and accessing and receiving individualised care.
Conclusion:
Identifying the palliative care needs that matter most to older people with multimorbidity requires the recognition of their concerns, as well as their symptoms, across a continuum of living and dying. Available evidence is superficial. Supporting end of life provision for this growing and underserved population necessitates a shift to tailored multidimensional tools and community focussed integrated care services.
As mediated death has become a staple of contemporary society, debates about the treatment of death in the public domain abound. This article examines the true crime comedy podcast My Favorite Murder, arguing that it functions to produce a collaboratively ‘provocative morbid space’ in which its hosts and audiences can engage in contemplating, discussing, and negotiating the politics of murder, victimhood, and their surrounding inequalities. My Favorite Murder explicitly positions itself as provocative and morally ambiguous, raising questions about who has ownership, legitimacy, and moral standing when it comes to discussing death. We argue that the podcast both reflects public fascination with death and functions to enact a socially progressive agenda through controversial and entertaining popular cultural engagement with the sensitive subject of murder. With the hosts acting as what we term ‘(im)moral entrepreneurs’ collaboratively producing with audiences ‘counter cultural (im)moral discourses’, the commercially successful podcast offers a version of the ‘cautionary tale’ that foregrounds the sociocultural inequalities that have contributed to the vast array of murders discussed across its 300+ existing episodes.