Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology

I’m an Associate Professor in Medical Sociology with two main fields 1) to analyse consumption, ideologies and socio-cultural practices of substances and drugs, both legal and illegal (e.g. stigma and social cultures of alcohol, smoking and vaping. pharmaceutical use, ‘transition’ drugs with multiple uses such as psychedelics; 2) to advance my novel theory of stigma change over time and apply it through public health policy.

 

Current foci include:

 

  • PATHS (Psychedelics as Therapeutics: Harm Reduction and Safety) Wellcome project, £2.5 million, University of Exeter, Co-I leading on stigma
  • Co-creating research on psychedelic use with police officers/, people with neurological conditions and festival-goers 
  • Collaborating with the University of Queensland, Australia, on psychedelics, stigma and divergent regulatory environments
  • Advancing a dynamic social feedback model of personality change for people with brain injuries and families (with Headway London)
  • Writing about my new theory of stigma change over time with Prof Mike Michael 

 

Member of: Society for the Study of Addiction, Editorial Board: International Journal of Drug Policy 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-hannah-farrimond-147737145/

 

Selected publications

 

1.       Farrimond, H. & Michael, M. (2026) Devaluation and revaluation as social processes: The case of psychedelic stigma, Sociology of Health and Illness: e70200.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9566.70200

 

2.      Smith, G & Farrimond, H. (2026)‘It’s Pure Bliss’: Pharmaceutical pleasures in later-life use of sleeping medication, International Journal of Drug Policy,152, 105248, April.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395926001003

 

3.      Smith G, Farrimond H. (2026) Understanding ‘embedded pharmaceuticalisation’: A case study of sleeping medication use in later life. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine. 2026;0(0). Feb.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13634593251408932

 

Estrada-Jaramillo A, Michael M, Farrimond H. (2026) Difficulties with clinical practice guidelines for congenital syphilis prevention in Colombia: a qualitative study. BMC Infect Dis. 29;26(1):435. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41612228/

 

4.      Hughes J, Stuart-Bennett J, Dunning M, Farrimond H. (2025) Towards a dynamic processual model of psychedelic microdosing. Int J Drug Policy, Feb;136:104691.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39709729/

 

5.      Farrimond, H. and Michael, M. (2025) How stigma emerges and mutates: The case of Long Covid stigma, Recalibrating stigma: Sociological perspectives in health and illness, Eds O. Williams, A. Chandler, T. Spratt and G. Thomas, Policy Press (Open Access).

https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/edcollchap-oa/book/9781529235838/ch008.xml

 

Farrimond, H. (2023) Stigma mutation: Tracking lineage, variation and strength in Covid-19 stigma. Sociological Research Online 28 (1): 171-188.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13607804211031580

 

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