Sara Cooper

Dr. Sara Cooper is a Senior Scientist in Cochrane South Africa at the South African Medical
Research Council and Honorary researcher in the Division of Social & Behavioural Sciences in
the School of Public Health & Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She
holds a Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Public
Health both from UCT, and a PhD in Medical Sociology from the London School of Hygiene &
Tropical Medicine. Sara’s research interests include the application and explanatory
potential of social science theories and methodologies within health research, policy and
practice, and how qualitative health research can be both ‘critical’ and ‘applied’. Her
previous research focused on these issues in the realm of long-term chronic illnesses,
including mental illness, diabetes and obesity. Her most current research is focused on
bringing a critical social science lens to the field of vaccination research, and on building her
own and others capacity in the emerging methodology of Qualitative Evidence Synthesis.