The University of Sheffield
Public Health

Amy Barnes

amy barnes

Section of Public Health
School of Health and Related Research
University of Sheffield
Regent Court
30 Regent Street
Sheffield
S1 4DA

Office: Room 2037, 2nd Floor, Regent Court

Tel: +44(0)114 222 0875
Fax: +44(0)114 272 4095

Biography

I joined ScHARR in December 2010 as a Lecturer in International Health Policy and Management, having previously been in the Department of Politics (also at the University of Sheffield) completing PhD research into the politics of partnership and aid for health.

My PhD research explored how (and why) the idea of partnership features in global policy and local practice, and the impact of this on the governance of health – using Zambia as a country case study. In particular, it explored how managerial partnership 'techniques' (e.g. contracts, targets and performance-based funding) shape, enable, contort and constrain local socio-political action in the Zambian health sector.

I try to work at the disciplinary interface between public health, public policy, management and politics.

Before embarking on my academic career, I worked at one of the UK Research Councils and at Imperial College London in health research management, where I spent  time working for the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative.

Research Interests

My research interests include: global health governance; the spaces and scales for participation in health systems; Zambian health politics; and health management as a political practice.

My future research plans include exploring: the role of international institutions in the spread of health management ideas; leadership in global health; and trade, industry and health politics.

Teaching Interests

I coordinate and teach on HAR618 International Health: Policy and Systems, and contribute to HAR682 Leading and Managing Public Healthcare Systems and HAR681 Strengthening Health Systems. I am keen to integrate the learning from my research into my teaching practice, and have tried to do this by developing a health policy `simulation´ that explores process and power.

I will be involved in the School´s emerging collaborative teaching programme with Bayero University in Kano, Northern Nigeria.

PhD Supervision

I am interested in supervising research students in the following areas: health politics, trade and industry involvement in health policy, global health aid, politics of health management, health partnerships, use of evidence in health policy.

Professional Activities

Current Projects

Developing the Strengthening Health and Participatory Engagement Internationally (SHAPEin) network - an international collaboration involving the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) and 10 other institutions in 7 countries.  I am currently preparing a research proposal to investigate relationships, knowledge and power in the health system in Zambia, which will pilot the SHAPEin Network's innovative resarch framework.

Publications

Barnes A. (2011) Aid and health systemss development: Understanding complexity, context and socio-political relationships.  Harewelle International Newsletter, 19th September 2011.

Barnes A. and Brown G.W. (2011) The Idea of Partnership within the Millenium Development Goals: Context, Instrumentality and the Normative Demands of Partnership, Third World Quarterly, 31 (2), 165-180.

Barnes A. and Brown G.W. (2011) The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: Expertise, Accountability and the Depoliticisation of Global Health Governance, in O. Williams & S. Rushton (eds) Global Health Partnerships and Private Foundations: New Frontiers in Health and Health Governance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Barnes, A. (2008) `Funding Civil Society: Foreign Assistance and NGO Development in Russia´, by Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom. Development Policy Review, 27 (2): 231-232.

Barnes A. 'Public/private 'investment' in global health: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, (neo)liberal rationality and the "creative destruction" of local health governance in practice'.  Paper prepared for the British International Studies Association Global Health Working Group, University of Sussex. 29 June 2011.  

Barnes A. 'The Managerial Logic and Governance Effects of Performance-Based Funding:  A critique of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in Zambia'. Paper presented at the International Conference on Global Health Governance & African Health Systems, Centre for African Studies, University of Edinburgh. 31 May 2011.