Dr Cristina Santos

Professional biography

Dr Cristina Santos is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Open University. She obtained her PhD Economics at University College London (2013).

Research interests

Her research interests and publications span the areas of health, education, gender, intrahousehold inequalities, domestic violence, happiness, and the capabilities approach. She has designed, implemented, and evaluated programmes in education and health, and supported the design and analysis of surveys in several Sub-Saharan African countries. She is currently conducting research on mixed methods and on the capabilities approach. She is a co-Investigator of the GCRF Inclusive societies project entitled “How to link industrial and social innovation for inclusive development: lessons from tackling cancer care in Africa” https://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/innovation-cancer-care-africa/people/dr-cristina-santos.

Teaching interests

Cristina Santos has led the production and presentation of several undergraduate Economics modules. More recently she has led the the production of the Econometrics strand in M348 Applied Statistical Modelling module. She is currently chairing the MSc Economics dissertation module D816 Doing Pluralist Economics Research and is a module team member in DD320 Doing Economics: Inequalities, Innovation and Environment.

She has successfully supervised three PhD students to completion and welcomes applications.

She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).

Research groups

Name	Type	Parent Unit
Centre for Citizenship, Identifies and Governance (CCIG)	Centre	Faculty of Social Sciences

Externally funded projects

How to link industrial and social innovation for inclusive development: lessons from tackling cancer care in Africa

Role	Start date	End date	Funding source
Co-investigator	01 Sep 2018	31 Aug 2021	ESRC Economic and Social Research Council
This new project is supported by the ESRC under the GCRF Inclusive Societies initiative. It aims to demonstrate the benefits for inclusive development of linking local industrial and social innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It will do this by addressing the “hard case” of increasing access to cancer care in East Africa.

Long-term conditions and mental health in Sub-Saharan Africa: mainstreaming community-based practices

Role	Start date	End date	Funding source
Co-investigator	01 Jan 2018	31 Dec 2018	The Academy of Medical Sciences
We will establish the first consortium to focus systematically on building evidence and community practice to tackle comorbidity between mental illness and other long-term conditions (LTCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Such comorbidity is increasing rapidly and presents a major challenge to SSA health care provision. Community-based interventions appear to be an efficacious response to this problem. However evidence to support this is still weak, especially in SSA. This proposal builds on our existing collaborations which have begun to examine the scope for inclusive and affordable community practice to tackle such comorbidities (Lloyd et al., 2015; Meddenhall et al., 2017). This proposal will build a sustainable research network of African and UK researchers to: 1. Generate a greater shared understanding of existing research on the interrelationships between mental health and other LTCs and the role of community engagement in SSA in tackling the challenge; 2. Identify gaps in current research and practice in different SSA countries from a range of disciplinary perspectives and experience; 3. Develop methodologies for combining research and practice to create and evaluate partnerships with communities for problem identification, decision-making and shared actions for prevention, treatment and management of comorbid mental and physical LTCs; 4. Develop and submit research proposals based on these methodologies; 5. Support the development and training of novice/early career researchers from SSA; 6. Create low cost-effective networking among a new strong and sustainable African network with UK partners for a long term impact in health research.

Publications

Journal articles

Patients’ pathways to cancer care in Tanzania: documenting and addressing social inequalities in reaching a cancer diagnosis (2022)
Makene, Fortunata Songora; Ngilangwa, Richard; Santos, Cristina; Cross, Charlotte; Ngoma, Twalib; Mujinja, Phares G. M.; Wuyts, Marc and Mackintosh, Maureen
BMC Health Services Research, 22(1)

Are we empowering women? (2017-03)
Santos, Cristina
Policy in Focus, 14(1) (pp. 7-9)

Costs of Domestic Violence: A Life Satisfaction Approach (2013-09-05)
Santos, Cristina
Fiscal Studies, 34(3) (pp. 391-409)

Sharing of resources within the family and the economics of household decision-making (2013-06)
Himmelweit, Susan; Santos, Cristina; Sevilla, Almudena and Sofer, Catherine
Journal of Marriage and Family, 75(3) (pp. 625-639)

Violent Crime, Gender Inequalities and Well-Being: Models based on a Survey of Individual Capabilities and Crime Rates for England and Wales (2007)
Anand, Paul and Santos, Cristina
Revue d'Economie Politique, 117(1) (pp. 877-902)

Book chapters

Innovation and Policy in Cancer Pain Management: Systemic Interactions in Tanzania (2024)
Daniels, Chux; Steenmans, Ine; Makene, Fortunata Songora; Ngilangwa, Richard; Ngoma, Twalib; Santos, Cristina and Mackintosh, Maureen
In: Banda, Geoffrey; Mackintosh, Maureen; Njeru, Mercy Karimi; Srinivas, Smita and Makene, Fortunata Songora eds. Cancer Care in Pandemic Times: Building inclusive local health security in Africa and India. International Political Economy Series (pp. 265-287)
ISBN : 978-3-031-44123-3 | Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan | Published : Switzerland

Beyond “Late Presentation”: Explaining Delayed Cancer Diagnosis in East Africa (2024)
Cross, Charlotte; Mokua, Sharon; Ngilangwa, Richard; Santos, Cristina; Ngoma, Twalib and Mujinja, Phares G. M.
In: Banda, Geoffrey; Mackintosh, Maureen; Njeru, Mercy Karimi; Makene, Fortunata Songora and Srinivas, Smita eds. Cancer Care in Pandemic Times: Building inclusive local health security in Africa and India.. International Political Economy Series. (pp. 93-111)
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan | Published : Switzerland

Gender equality and taxation. A UK case study (2010-05-14)
de Henau, Jerome; Himmelweit, Susan and Santos, Cristina
In: Grown, Karen and Valodia, Imraan eds. Taxation and gender equity. A comparative analysis of direct and indirect taxes in developing and developed countries. Routledge International Studies in Money and Banking (pp. 261-298)
ISBN : 978-0-415-49262-1 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Violent crime, gender inequalities and well-being: models based on capabilities and crime data for England and Wales (2009-07)
Anand, Paul and Santos, Cristina
In: Harris, Bernard; Gálvez, Lina and Machado, Helena eds. Gender and Well-Being in Europe: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (pp. 157-184)
ISBN : 9780754672647 | Publisher : Ashgate | Published : Farnham

The measurement of capabilities (2008)
Anand, Paul; Santos, Cristina and Smith, Ron
In: Basu, Kaushik and Kanbur, Ravi eds. Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honor of Amartya Sen: Volume I: Ethics, Welfare, and Measurement (pp. 283-310)
ISBN : 978-0-19-923911-5 | Publisher : Oxford University Press | Published : Oxford

Thesis

Dimensions of Well-Being: Earnings, Happiness and Domestic Violence (2013-04)
Santos, Cristina
PhD thesis University College London

Other

Perspectives of providers of cancer care in Tanzania: evidence and implications for policy (2023-03)
Cross, Charlotte; Makene, Fortunata Sangora; Mackintosh, Maureen; Ngilangwa, Richard Gordon; Santos, Cristina; Mujinja, Phares G. M. and Ngoma, Twalib
Economic and Social Research Foundation, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Access to Cancer Care in Kenya: Patients’, Survivors’, Caregivers’ and Health Providers’ Perspectives (2021-12)
Njeru, Mercy K.; Cross, Charlotte; Nyandieka, Lilian; Wanjala, Cecilia; Mokua, Sharon N.; Mutisya, Richard; Santos, Cristina; Manduku, Veronica and Mackintosh, Maureen
Open University / ICCA, Nairobi, Kenya and Milton Keynes.

Cancer patients’ pathways: evidence and implications for policy (2020-08)
Makene, Fortunata Songora; Ngilangwa, Richard Gordon; Mackintosh, Maureen; Santos, Cristina; Cross, Charlotte; Mujinja, Phares G.M. and Ngoma, Twalib
Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF), Innovation for Cancer Care in Africa (ICCA), The Open University

Education Workforce Initiative: Initial Research (2018-04-30)
Wolfenden, Freda; Buckler, Alison; Santos, Cristina and Mittelmeier, Jenna
International Commission on Financing Education Opportunity (The Education Commission)

Costs of domestic violence: a life satisfaction approach (2012-03-05)
Santos, Cristina
Economics Department, The Open University

Wealth Accumulation and Home Ownership of US young adults: 2005-2009 (2012-01-01)
Santos, Cristina
FINNOV

Revisiting the age-happiness profile: Estimating age, period and cohort effects (2011-09-14)
Santos, Cristina
Economics Department, The Open University

Gender analysis of the changes in indirect taxes introduced by the coalition government, 2010-2011 (2011-06)
de Henau, Jerome and Santos, Cristina
Women's Budget Group, United Kingdom.

Gender incidence analysis of indirect taxes in the UK (2009-01)
Santos, Cristina
Economics Department, The Open University

The Measurement of Capabilities (2007-11)
Anand, Paul; Santos, Cristina and Smith, Ron
Economics Department, The Open University

Estimating linear birth cohort effects: revisiting the age-happiness profile (2007-01)
Santos, Cristina
Open University, Economics Department, Milton Keynes, UK.

Violent Crime, Gender Inequalities and Well-Being: Models based on a Survey of Individual Capabilities and Crime Rates for England and Wales (2006-12)
Anand, Paul and Santos, Cristina
Economics Department, The Open University

Research at The Open University

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