Visiting researcher profile: Lena R. Hann
Lena R. Hann, PhD, MPH is a visiting researcher at the Centre for Gender Research, originally from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, where they serve as Associate Professor of Public Health, Affiliated Faculty in the Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies and Scandinavian Studies programs, and Director of the Whole Person Health in Scandinavia study abroad program.
Lena Hann / Photo: J Quigley Berg
Lena spent the formative years of her career working in sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and abortion-providing clinics in the USA as a pregnancy options counselor, patient advocate, laboratory technician, sex educator, and health programs coordinator. Lena serves on the Membership Committee for the Abortion Care Network, is an Abortion Conversation Projects grant partner, and has presented their research to global audiences.
What is your research about?
I study patient-centered pregnancy tissue viewing (PCV) in reproductive health settings. Specifically, I examine patient-provider communication about the fetus and how public fetal imagery and abortion discourse shape the PCV process. My research aims to help health providers understand internalized abortion stigma and develop patient-centered best practices; I authored Patient-Centered Pregnancy Tissue Viewing: Strategies and Best Practices for Independent Abortion Providers (2020; 2023), a medical best practices manual used in over 200 health clinics in North America. I’m currently exploring PCV approaches in Sweden and how historic, social, cultural, and political factors have shaped discussion about the fetus in public and private settings.
Research interests: Patient-centered abortion care; stigma; gender in health; sexual and reproductive health; innovating best practices
Selection of publications
- Hann, LR and Becker, A. (2020) The option to look: Patient-centered pregnancy tissue viewing at independent abortion clinics in the United States, Sexual & Reproductive Health Matters
- Hann, LR and Ludlow, J. (2020) Look like a provider: Representing the materiality of the fetus in abortion care work, Representing Abortion
- Becker, A. and Hann, LR. (2021) "It makes it more real": Examining ambiguous fetal meanings in abortion care, Social Science & Medicine
- Ingraham, N. and Hann, LR. (2022) "Stigma R us": Stigma management at the intersection of abortion care and transgender care in family planning clinics, SSM- Qualitative Research in Health
- Hann, LR. (2023) "How did I not know any of this?" Teaching reproductive justice in an abortion desert, Feminist Pedagogy