Associated with UCSF since 2020 (as well as 1997-2005) | Phone: +45 35 45 73 67 |
helle.ussing.timm@regionh.dk, timm@sdu.dk
Educational background: Cultural sociology (MSc/mag.art.), health care science (PhD), and a 2 year leadership program.
Research methods: Primarily qualitative methods.
Focus areas: Stories about living with severe disease and infirmity, the history of palliative care in Denmark, integrating rehabilitation and palliative care approaches, boundaries between life and death, abortion, care as a concept and in practice. Theoretically mainly inspired by cultural sociological theory, narrative theory and institutional logic theory.
Projects: Working on projects and supervising PhD students and others concerning the mentioned topics.
Collaboration partners/network: Danish health care practitioners and interdisciplinary researchers as well as foreign researchers and networks; for instance Nordic Network for Narrative medicine, Nordic Network for Thanatology, EAPC, European Association of Palliative Care.
Selected publications
- Erlik M, Hindhede A and Timm H. Exploring storylines on patient involvement in the Nordic welfare system: insights from Danish academic literature. Nordic Welfare Research 2026;11(2):1-13. doi:
10.18261/nwr.11.2.1.
- Graven V, Jacobsen MH and Timm H. Theorising end of life care. In: Clark D, Samuels A, eds. Research handbook on end of life care and society. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing; 2025. p. 13-27. doi:
10.4337/9781035317349.
- Erlik M, Missel M, Quist M and Timm H. Coming-around: living with lung cancer on the nether side of rehabilitation in Denmark. Med Anthropol 2025;44(6):576-589. doi:
10.1080/01459740.2025.2540532.
- Gärtner HS, Blix BH, Raunkiær M and Timm H. ‘There is nothing beautiful or life-affirming in it’: experiences of harm in a narrative course combining rehabilitative and palliative care approaches for people who have or have had cancer. Mortality (Abingdon) 2025;30(3):695-711. doi:
10.1080/13576275.2024.2360521.
- Timm H, Jess M, Hindhede AL, Møller T, Andersen C and Larsen K. Omsorg som næstekærlighed, arbejde og fag: spor i skandinavisk omsorgsforskning relateret til sundhed og sygdom, 1980-2020. Tidsskrift for Forskning i Sygdom og Samfund 2024;22(40):20-40. doi:
10.7146/tfss.v22i40.136961.
- Timm H. Transformation of the concepts and practice of total pain and total care: 30 years of Danish hospices. Front Sociol 2023;8:01-11. doi:
10.3389/fsoc.2023.1145131.
- Graff L, Timm H and Thuesen J. Organizational narratives in rehabilitation-focused dementia care: negotiating identities, interventions and personhood. Dementia (London) 2023;22(4):709-26. doi:
10.1177/14713012231161487.
- Jess M, Nielsen SP, Rasmussen A, Skov-Pedersen J and Timm H. Stories of a long life with HIV: a qualitative study of a narrative intervention. Scand J Caring Sci 2023;37(3):777-87. doi: 10.1111/scs.13161. PMID: 36918749.
- Timm H, Thuesen J and Clark D. Rehabilitation and palliative care: histories, dialectics and challenges [version 1; peer review: 3 approved]. Wellcome Open Res 2021;6:171. doi:
10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16979.1
- Roikjaer SG, Gärtner HS and Timm H. Use of narrative methods in rehabilitation and palliative care in Scandinavian countries: a scoping review. Scand J Caring Sci 2022;36(2):346-81. doi: 10.1111/scs.13050. PMID: 34882807.