School of Nursing: Faculty

David G. Allen, PhD, FAAN
Professor

Psychosocial & Community Health
357263
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-7263

Email Address: dgallen@u.washington.edu


The focus of my work has been the intersection of nursing and social justice. In nursing and in women studies, I teach methodological issues that arise when power and contested values (especially around systematic disadvantaging by race, class and gender) are central to one's inquiry. Similarly, my theoretical explorations are related to how power, justice, privilege and disadvantage are embedded in theoretical discourses and what sorts of vocabularies nurses might employ to address these issues directly.
My current research falls under the rubric of "correctional mental health." The U.S. imprisons more of its mentally ill than any other country and more than any time in our history. Criminal justice is heavily class and racially biased, so persons with mental illness (about 15% of all inmates) in prisons largely represent America's underclass: poor, traumatized persons of color. Mental illness adds an additional burden to an already unfair system, contributing to both "cruel and inhuman punishment" by way of inadequate treatment and to longer, more restrictive (and expensive) sentences than people convicted of identical crimes but who don't have mental disabilities. Another disturbing (as documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, American Friends and others) trend in American corrections is the expansion of "control units" that impose extreme sensory and psychosocial deprivation, leading to psychosis and various forms of extreme behavior. Our research and practice is directed at improving the lives of people with mental illness and those confined to these control units.
Teaching: Courses I regularly teach include NURS 553 Correctional Mental Health, NURS550 whiteness, racism and psychosocial health; nursing theory (from a critical, postmodern perspective) and feminist methodologies (Women 503). I supervise a range of doctoral students, including students in New Zealand and Australia.

Easy to Print Version