Dr Keiko Kanno

Postdoctoral Affiliate

My research is anchored in the confluence of urbanisation, dietary behaviours and urban health and wellbeing, with particular attention to how regional, generational and socioeconomic contexts shape similarities and differences in health behaviours and health outcomes. I aim to contribute to medical anthropological and interdisciplinary approaches that address persistent and emerging public health challenges, and I am increasingly interested in the role of artificial intelligence and its implications for health and wellbeing across rural and urban contexts.

Building on these interests, my work investigates social determinants of health, with a focus on how interacting environmental, urban and socioeconomic factors shape dietary and exercise behaviours and broader outcomes of health and wellbeing. My research integrates medical anthropology, public health and the environmental and social sciences. I am a Postdoctoral Affiliate in the School of Anthropology, a Junior Teaching Fellow at the Ashmolean Museum and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA).

My research employs mixed methods approaches and draws on qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including ethnography, survey design, statistical analysis, participatory approaches, case study research and discourse analysis. I have undertaken fieldwork in Asia, Europe and North America in both individual and team-based contexts of data collection and analysis. At the University of Oxford, I have contributed to projects spanning climate, human behaviour, higher education and health and wellbeing, undertaking qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods research across the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, Oxford NetZero, the Unit for Biocultural Variations and Obesity, the School of Geography and the Environment, the Careers Service and Gardens, Libraries and Museums (GLAM).

I teach across all four academic divisions at the University of Oxford, from Humanities to Medical Sciences, in the capacities of lecturer, tutor, facilitator and Junior Teaching Fellow, on topics including global health, social medicine, international development, health and human rights, ethical reasoning and interdisciplinary problem solving in STEM subjects. I design and deliver termly training in fieldwork, positionality, interdisciplinary research and qualitative and quantitative research data management for academics and doctoral researchers in the Social Sciences Division. I also facilitate weekly writing sessions for doctoral students in the Division.

I hold master’s and doctoral degrees in Medical Anthropology from the University of Oxford, as well as a certificate in Management in Medicine from Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. I welcome enquiries from undergraduate and master’s students at the University of Oxford seeking supervision on topics relating to urban health, regional and cross-cultural variations in behaviour and health outcomes, human behaviour, global health and wellbeing, international development, sustainable food systems and food environments and biological and medical anthropology, using qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches.

I am committed to public engagement and have exhibited my research at the Pitt Rivers Museum. I have also presented my work to school pupils as part of the Anthropology Open Day at St John’s College and through Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach programmes at the University of Oxford. I currently serve as Co-Chair of the Early Career Qualitative Health Research Network.

Email: keiko.kanno@anthro.ox.ac.uk