Ragnar Anderson
PhD in Health and Wellbeing: Parents and young people’s communications about sex and sexuality: meaning-making and affect
Profile
Ragnar is a full-time doctorial candidate within the School of Health. She has been a sexual and reproductive health researcher for the past decade. Her doctoral research explores the ways in which parents and young people discuss, make meaning, and experience affective and embodied dimensions of parent-child sex communication. Ragnar is interested in a broader conceptualization of parent-child sex communication which includes topics such as relationships, intimacy, feelings, desire, pleasure and sexual subjectivity – and how ideas and values around these and related topics are exchanged in an everyday life.
Qualifications
BA (Honours), English Language and Literature (2003) University of Chicago
MPH, Sexuality and Health (2011) Columbia University
Research interests
Sexual health, sexuality, young people, gender, positive sexuality, parent-child sexual communication, affect theory
Publications
Moore A, Dennis M, Anderson R, Bankole A, Abelson A, Greco G and Vwalika B, Comparing
women’s financial costs of induced abortion at a facility vs. seeking treatment for complications
from unsafe abortion in Zambia, Reproductive Health Matters, 2018, 26:52
Starrs A and Anderson R, Definitions and Debates: Sexual Health and Sexual Rights, The
Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2016, 22:2, 7-23
Michielsen K, De Meyer S, Ivanova O, Anderson R, Decat P, Herbiet C, Kabiru C, Ketting E,
Lees J, Moreau C, Tolman D, Vanwesenbeeck I, Vega B, Verhetsel E and Chandra-Mouli V,
Reorienting adolescent sexual and reproductive health research: Reflections from an
international conference. Reproductive Health, 2016, 13:3
Anderson R, Panchaud C, Singh S and Remez L, Measuring Adolescent Women’s Reproductive
Health Within a Rights-Based Framework: Developing and Applying an Index, New York:
Guttmacher Institute, 2014
Anderson R, Panchaud C, Singh S and Watson K, Demystifying Data: A Guide to Using
Evidence to Improve Young People’s Sexual Health and Rights, New York: Guttmacher
Institute, 2013
Anderson R, Positive sexuality and its impact on overall wellbeing, Bundesgesundheitsblatt
Gesundheitsforschung Gesundheitsschutz, 2013, 56: 208–214
Kavanaugh M and Anderson R, Contraception and Beyond: The Health Benefits of Services
Provided at Family Planning Centers, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2013
Sonfield A, Hasstedt K, Kavanaugh M, Anderson R, The Social and Economic Benefits of
Women’s Ability to Determine Whether and When to Have Children, New York: Guttmacher
Institute, 2013.
Frohwirth L, Mueller J, Anderson R, Williams P, Kochhar S, Castle S K, & Kavanaugh M L. Understanding Contraceptive Failure: An Analysis of Qualitative Narratives. Women's Reproductive Health, 1-23. 2022
Contact
Supervisors
Senior Lecturer in Health Promotion
School of Health
