Michelle De Jong is a social science researcher with a background in psychology. She is interested in maternal and reproductive health and LGBTQIA+ wellbeing, patient/provider communication and media constructions of health and gender.

Michelle joined the SOPH in 2019 as a postdoctoral research fellow and was appointed as a senior lecturer in 2023. She is currently the MPH programme coordinator and teaches on the Globalisation and Health module and the Qualitative Research Methods module. At SOPH she also actively contributes to the adolescent and sexual and reproductive health cluster and the health policy and systems cluster.

She has been involved in a number of research projects focusing on topics related to gender and health systems including gender mainstreaming in government programs, gender and human resources for health, an intersectional analysis of drinking during pregnancy, and multi-sectoral and community approaches to preventing alcohol abuse. She has also been involved in a political economy analysis of adolescent mental health, a gendered analysis of adolescent health policies in South Africa and an exploration of mental health among LGBTQ human rights activists. Currently, she is working on a project focusing on informed consent during labour and birth.

Her blogs include:

• Mapping of potential case studies on gender integration in government health programs across Africa, South Asia and South East Asia
• Uncovering the diamond in the rough: Selecting promising cases of gender integration in government health programs across Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia
• No perfect place. Published in the HSG Blog
• Visas: A regressive tax on LMICs. Published in the HSG Blog

Projects

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