Dr Abi MacDonald

Abi qualified as a medical doctor in 2022, and went onto study a masters in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London. She is currently undertaking a PhD, under the supervision of Dr Tony Robertson, Dr Sandra Engstrom, Dr Wendy Masterton, and Dr Ines Branco-Illodo. This research takes a place-based participatory systems approach to countermapping health inequalities at the contaminated brownfield land and food insecurity nexus in Glasgow City, in the context of community agroecology. A key aim is to move beyond market-driven and deficit approaches to underrepresented communities and their health. In particular, she hopes to integrate cultural studies, ecology, and health methodologies to create new understandings and frameworks for a life-centred ecological approach to health and urban planning.

Beyond the PhD, Abi is leading the community workshops and MRC Public Health Intervention Development (PHIND) work packages on the Physical Activity and Social ConnectednESs (PACES) in Healthy Ageing study at the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow. Here, she has been progressing novel methodologies in participatory systems co-design and community capacity building, to better enable intervention development in a community setting.

Prior to this, she worked with Dr Muna Al Jawad at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, using intersectionality, participatory action and creative research to action change within the medical education curriculum. The actions contributed to increasing inclusive practice for trainee doctors and patients, and more social and cultural representation in medical learning and practice. Part of this involved an intersectionality seminar in the Race and Racism in Healthcare module for first year medical students. Related to this, she also reviewed policy research on widening participation in medicine and how this relates to providing healthcare for underserved populations.

Beyond academia and medicine, Abi has spent the last ten years volunteering in a range of community advocacy projects for increasing access to and dignity in healthcare and food justice, as well as growing in agroecology projects.

Social epidemiology; contamination; exposome; allostatic load; experiences of food insecurity; cultural studies; relational, embodiment and ecological approaches; participatory systems methods; food justice; agroecology; cultural representation; cultural wellbeing

Intersectionality seminar on Race and Racism in Healthcare module, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, 2019.