~Activist scholarship because I have to pick a side if I am truly about justice and equity~
Hello, my name is Sirry Alang. I am a Medical Sociologist and a Health Services Researcher.
My research explores the role of social structures and institutions in creating inequities in health status and many health outcomes across the globe. I am interested in how racism and other structures and mechanisms of exclusion shape health outcomes over the life course.
My work has also focused on mental health and mental illnesses, especially help-seeking, assessment, access to and outcomes of treatment.
In my research, I apply a range of methodologies including focus groups, ethnography, policy analyses, and quantitative analyses of complex surveys.
You can see some of my academic publications here.
I work at Lehigh University where I am an Associate Professor of Sociology and Health, Medicine and Society. I am also a founding co-director of the Institute of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and chair of the Health Justice Collaborative.
I am working with my local community to strengthen partnerships necessary to understand and eliminate health inequities using a community-based participatory action research approach.
I teach at the graduate and undergraduate levels. My courses include: Introduction to Public Health; Social Epidemiology; Race, Ethnicity and Health; HIV/AIDS and Society; Globalization and Health; Gender and Health, and Statistics for Sociological Inquiry. Teaching is the most exciting part of my job.
I earned my Ph.D. in Health Services Research, Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in 2015. I have an M.A. in Sociology from Lehigh University and a B.Sc. in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Buea in Cameroon.
