Kalonde Kasengele

Kalonde graduated from Glasgow University in 2003 with a Bsc (Hons) in Physiology. His undergraduate dissertation was on the effects of creatine and glycerol supplementation on prolonged exercise in the heat in endurance-trained subjects. After undertaking voluntary work both in Zambia and Glasgow, Kalonde's interests switched to public health and he completed the Master of Public Health at Glasgow University in 2005. His dissertation was a content analysis study of magazines' influences on sexual health of young people.

Kalonde joined the unit in September 2006 as a PhD student with ‘Social Comparisons and Health' as his studentship project. Recent debates on the determinants of health inequalities have included the idea that socioeconomic differences affect health through perceptions of one's place in the social hierarchy. It has been argued that perceiving oneself to be inferior in relation to others around us is a psychosocial risk factor associated with ill health. Although there has been much discussion of the extent to which social comparisons and health outcomes might be related, little is known about who people tend to compare themselves with. In Kalonde's project, this question will be further investigated using a mainly qualitative approach to address the research questions.