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About Rachel Winter

About the author: Rachel Winter, BA MA PhD, Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham, Research Fellow. Her profile states,

Rachel completed a BA in Geography at the University of Lancaster, followed by an MA in International Development and PhD in Public Health at the University of Sheffield. Throughout this, she used sociological theories and qualitative methods to explore physical and mental health.

In her PhD she used ethnography, interviews and autophotography to explore masculinities and eating practices in the Philippines. She researched the impact of social, cultural and gendered practices on food consumption.

As a post-doctoral researcher, she has worked on a range of studies using both online and offline ethnography to research mental health. This has included exploring the ethics of care on social media, online discussions about self-harm and suicide, and researching mental health inpatient wards.

She has also researched how knowledge is exchanged on social media about physical and mental health, and the impacts this may have on offline engagement with healthcare services.

Rachel currently works on a Samaritans funded project which aims to understand what online self-harm and suicide content may be harmful or beneficial and to whom.

About the diary: The diary entries were taken from quotations from the author’s research diary, in her thesis, Masculinities and eating practices in the Philippines: An ethnographic study, University of Sheffield, 2017.