Research Focus Areas

Short Biography

Lisa Lehner works on questions of social inequality through the lens of critical health research. She is interested in the way that policymaking and knowledge production constitute and perpetuate social inequalities, and its lived consequences. Key topics in her research are the experience and structural conditions of "being/becoming healthy," the meaning, history, and margins of the welfare state, as well as processes of marginalization in the healthcare system - especially with regard to addiction, homelessness, illegalized migration, and LGBTQIA+ issues. At the moment her focus lies on pharmaceutical research and production, and the responsible and sustainable use of medicines.

Her work traverses medical anthropology, science studies (STS), and critical public health. For her interdisciplinary research work she also relies on her experiences as a postgraduate researcher on national and international research projects, including EU-projects "CANCERLESS" (Horizon 2020 GA 965351) and "SoNAR-Global" (Horizon 2020 GA 825671), as well as her work as an NGO-consultant where one of her projects focused on "social prescribing."

In her doctoral thesis at Cornell University's Department of Science & Technology Studies, she dealt with the meaning, embodiment, and social conditions of "curedness" in the context of Hepatitis C infections in Austria.

Currently, she works as a PostDoc and Co-PI on the 3-year research project "Less is More" on the prescription, circulation, and use of benzodiazepines and antibiotics in the healthcare system of Vienna.

Current Publications

Dissertation:

• “The Liminal Cure: Living with Hepatitis C, its Treatment, and the Welfare State in Austria." Doctoral Thesis at the Department of Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), 2023.

selected publications:

• Lehner, L, & Eitenberger, M. 2022. Teaching Multiplicities: Von der Arbeit mit multi-medialen Arbeiten. Curare 45 (2022) 2, 85-94.
• Schiffler, T, Kapan, A, Gansterer, A, Pass, T, Lehner, L, Gil-Salmeron, A, McDermott, D, Grabovac, I. 2023. Characteristics and Effectiveness of Co-Designed Mental Health Interventions in Primary Care for People Experiencing Homelessness: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 20(1): 892.
• Jeleff, M, Lehner, L, Giles-Vernick, T, Dückers, MLA, Napier, AD, Jirovsky, E, Kutalek, R. 2022. Vulnerability and One Health assessment approaches for infectious threats from a social science perspective: A systematic scoping review. The Lancet Planetary Health 6(8): e682–93.
• Lehner, L, Gribi, J, Hoffmann, K, Paul, KT, Kutalek, R. 2021. Beyond the “Information Deficit Model” - Understanding Vaccine-Hesitant Attitudes of Midwives in Austria: A Qualitative Study. BMC Public Health 21: 1671.

Projects

LESS IS MORE: DE-PRESCRIBING PHARMACEUTICALS FOR PATIENT SAFETY AND SUSTAINABLE PUBLIC HEALTH (2023-2026)

Cooperative research project funded by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund between the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna. The project combines statistical and implementation science approaches with ethnographic methods to understand the prescription, circulation, and use of benzodiazepines and antibiotics in Vienna with the goal of highlighting modes of de-prescribing for a safer and more sustainable use of medicines.

Link: https://health-matters.univie.ac.at/projects/lessismore/