Dr Josie Hamper
About
Dr Josie Hamper is a Research Associate in Online Visual Trust in the School of Geography and the Environment, currently working on the TRAVIS project, and her research focuses on the intersection between new technology, health and medicine.
Her published work explores how people engage with health and medical technologies, information and imagery, and how digital visualisations (such as fertility monitoring data or images of embryos and foetuses) travel through people's social worlds. Drawing on her qualitative work with fertility patients, Dr Hamper has advised the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and contributed to the Women's Health Strategy for England (2021).
Research interests: Social studies of health and medicine; reproduction and parenting; reproductive technologies self-tracking; the quantified self; digital practices, social media and health apps; qualitative research methods; ethnography.
Dr Hamper joined the School of Geography and the Environment following a postdoctoral research post funded by the Wellcome Trust at Queen Mary University of London. She has a PhD (Human Geography) from Queen Mary University of London, an MSc (Geographies of Health), also from Queen Mary University of London, and an MA (Geography) from the University of St Andrews.
Expertise
- Misinformation, disinformation and how people trust health information on social media: special areas of expertise include reproductive and sexual health content, mental health content, nutrition and exercise content.
- Self-tracking apps and devices: how people use self-tracking apps to manage women’s health conditions, sexual health and reproductive health. Wide ranging publication history on menstruation/period, fertility, and pregnancy tracking apps.
- People’s perceptions of data privacy and experiences of intimate data sharing: how people perceive data privacy in relation to self-tracking and social media use. How people manage their personal data in the context of everyday life.
- How health is represented through online visual culture: including how generative AI normalises particular models of health and healthy bodies.
- Patient experiences of fertility treatment (IVF) in the UK: how patients navigate private/NHS service provision; how they make decisions about their treatment and how they experience the emotional and financial burden of fertility treatment.
Selected publications
- 'Babies are a massive money spinner’: Data, reproductive labour and the commodification of pre-motherhood in fertility and pregnancy apps (2024)
- Blurring the divide: Navigating the public/private landscape of fertility treatment in the UK (2023)
- Patient informed choice in the age of evidence-based medicine: IVF patients’ approaches to medical evidence and fertility treatment add-ons (2022)
- Watching embryos: Exploring the geographies of assisted reproduction through encounters with embryo imaging technologies (2022)
- A fertility app for two? Women’s perspectives on sharing conceptive fertility work with male partners (2021)
- Bonding work: Spacing relations through pregnancy apps (2021)
- ‘Catching Ovulation’: Exploring Women’s Use of Fertility Tracking Apps as a Reproductive Technology (2020)
Media experience
Dr Josie Hamper has considerable media experience working with news organisations such as The Telegraph and iNews, and her research areas are often covered in the media (including: fertility apps, self-tracking, and social media health advice).
Recent media work
- Who is eligible for IVF? How to navigate the NHS lottery (The Telegraph, 2023)
- ‘I got a £5,000 refund on my IVF treatment’: Women reveal how they saved on fertility treatments (i news, 2023)
- New research finds inequalities in access to IVF treatment on the NHS (Health Europa, 2023)
- New research shows lack of NHS financial support forces IVF patients into private care they can't afford (Medical Xpress, 2023)
- NHS Cash Shortage Forcing IVF Patients Into Unaffordable Private Care (Mirage News, 2023)
- ICB proposes reducing NHS fertility treatment despite Women's Health Strategy (Bionews,2023)
- Lack of NHS funding forces IVF patients into private care, says study (Femtech World, 2023)
- Fertility doctors urged to consider how IVF patients make choices (Bionews, 2022)
- IVF patients need personally tailored support from doctors to make informed choices (News-Medical, 2022)
- New research shows how IVF patients view medical evidence differently (Medical Xpress, 2022)
Languages
English, Norwegian, Danish