Sandy Sufian is a historian of medicine and disability at University of Illinois at Chicago. She is holds joint appointments in the Department of Medical Education in the College of Medicine (Health Humanities) and in the Department of Disability and Human Development in the College of Applied Health Sciences.
She is cofounder of the Cystic Fibrosis Reproductive and Sexual Health Collaborative and serves on the editorial board of Disability Studies Quarterly.
Her most recent book is Familial Fitness: Disability, Adoption, and Family in Modern America, a history of the adoption of children with disabilities in the US during the twentieth century.
Research Interests
Sandy Sufian studies how biological and contextual factors interact to shape disability and illness experiences. She centers patients’ voices in my research to best understand the complexity of their lives and their health status. She is specifically interested in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, chronic illness, family and kinship, and best-practices for patient-centered outcomes research. She teaches graduate and medical students about patient-centered and contextual care, social aspects of illness and disability, and the social and structural determinants of health.
See her CV for professional affiliations and organizations