Andy Alaszewski obituary

My friend and former colleague Andy Alaszewski, who has died aged 76, was an inspiring social scientist. His research spanned health policy, illness and disability, and the wider relationship between health and society. In 1998 Andy founded the journal Health, Risk & Society with Jill Manthorpe. As its editor for 20 years, he developed it into an influential forum for risk theory and wide-ranging empirical studies, attracting global contributors and readerships. From 2001 he was professor of health studies at the University of Kent and director of its Centre for Health Services Studies. There he developed critical social science approaches to risk and risk governance, advising the UK Research Councils on priorities on the subject (with Tom Horlick-Jones). His research showed how carefully studying organisational cultures and lived experiences can help us explain why risk-management policies have varying impacts across different groups and, moreover, how they can develop unintended consequences. In 2008 Andy joined the government’s scientific advisory committee on pandemic influenza and later published two timely books, Covid-19 and Risk: Policy Making in a Global Pandemic (2021), a