Zofia Słońska is a PhD in sociology, academic researcher and lecturer, currently retired. In years 1991-2002 she worked as an assistant professor and a head of the Department of Health Promotion and in years 2002-2020 a deputy head at the Department of Epidemiology, Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the National Institute of Cardiology in Poland. Between 2006-2018 she was a member of the Polish Government Population Council. In 1991, she became a consultant for health promotion in the World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe. In years 1993-2002 she was a leader in a national health promotion WHO counterpart for Poland and in years 1995 to 2002, a member of the European Committee for Health Promotion Development. Since 2010 she has been a member of the executive Board of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology (ESHMS) and currently is the vice president of this organization. Her research areas of interest are: Sociology of health and medicine, public health, including health promotion, social epidemiology and health literacy. She is an author and co-author of many national and international research projects, including the awarded in 2012 the European Health Award ‘the European Health Literacy Survey (HLS-EU)’ as well as of above 100 peer-reviewed Polish and foreign scientific publications, including monographs, collective works and articles in scientific journals and of the Encyclopedia of Sociology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Piet Bracke (°1961) is a full professor at the department of sociology of Ghent University, Belgium. He focuses on population health and health services use from an institutional perspective. Core research themes are mental health, stigma, professional care seeking, medicalization, and preventive behaviour. Presently, his research group focuses on mental health and the Covid19 pandemic, on stigma, professional care seeking and ethnicity, on medicalization theory and medication use, and on vaccination hesitancy from a cross-national comparative perspective. Piet Bracke is a former president of the ESHMS (2010-2014).