Chris Dowrick

Christopher Dowrick is Emeritus Professor in the University of Liverpool, general practitioner in Aintree Park Group Practice, and Professorial Research Fellow in the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of WONCA and provides expert advice to WHO. He researches common mental health problems in primary care, with a focus on depression and medically unexplained symptoms. He critiques contemporary emphases on unitary diagnostic categories and medically oriented interventions, and highlights the need for socially oriented perspectives for marginalised communities.

He is currently exploring the ways in which literary reading can reduce emotional distress. With WONCA he has enabled educational interventions for family doctors in Europe and Asia, and leads an initiative to expand the advocacy skills of family doctors in primary mental health care. He has published seven books and over 250 research papers.