Dr Kevin Deane

Professional biography

I am an interdisciplinary specialist in Economics, Political Economy and International Development. My research interests focus on the political economy of health with an application to the HIV epidemic in Eastern and Southern Africa. I have worked on a range of topics related to HIV including gender, migration, workplace programmes, HIV testing and the relationship between socio-economic status and HIV. I am also interested in the political and social determinants of malaria. I am primarily a qualitative researcher with experience of conducting fieldwork in East Africa.

Current research activities as of November 2021 include:

• UKRI-funded multi-country study titled ‘Maximising benefit and minimising the harm of COVID-19 control measures on child and women’s health in four Sub-Saharan African countries’ (PI- Professor Dave McCoy, Queen Mary,University of London)
• BHIVA-funded study exploring the acceptability of offering rapid antiretroviral therapy to people living with HIV in East London (PI Rageshri Dhairyawan, Barts Health NHS Trust)
• A project (with David Musoke and Sarah Nalinya, Makerere University, Uganda) exploring alternative interventions for Malaria control
• Co-editing (with Joyce Wamoyi, National Institute for Medical Research, Tanzania) a research topic collection titled 'Delinking gender and poverty in HIV research and interventions for Adolescent Girls and Young women (AGYW) in sub-Saharan Africa' https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/26970/delinking-gender-and-poverty-in-hiv-research-and-interventions-for-adolescent-girls-and-young-women

I have extensive experience of teaching face-to-face and online. I have previously taught a wide range of Development Economics and International Development modules, and I also have expertise in teaching the History of Economic Thought.

I have edited (with Elisa van Waeyenberge, SOAS) a new textbook published in April 2020 titled ‘Recharting the History of Economic Thought’. This textbook takes and innovate, thematic approach to the subject with the aim of promoting pluralist economics education.

At the OU, I am the PhD convenor for the Economics Discipline.

PhD Supervision

I am open to supervising PhD students on the following topics:

• Any aspect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in East and Southern Africa that takes a social science/political economy perspective. For example:
  • The role of Poverty/Wealth in the epidemic
  • Gender and Women’s Economic Empowerment
  • Inequalities in access to treatment
  • Living and Working with HIV
  • The Economic and Social impact of the epidemic
  • Migration
• Critical perspectives on:
  • Cash Transfers and Health
  • Microfinance and Health
• Political economy approaches to understanding health issues in sub-Saharan Africa

I currently have two PhD students:

Cresencia Uleme (University of Northampton), “Slum Upgrading and the Rental Housing Sector: A study of landlord-tenant relationships in a Lagos (Nigeria) slum”, submitted January 2020

Daniel Nyato (Queen Mary, University of London), working title “Understanding the influence of increasing persecution and hostility on delivery of and access to HIV services among men who have sex with men in Tanzania”, commenced October 2019, 

Professional Associations

I am the International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy (IIPPE) Teaching Political Economy Working Group co-coordinator (with Elisa Van Waeyenberge and Lorena Lombardozzi), and a member of Reteaching Economics.