The new Centre will continue to be led by Maria Caiata Zufferey, Full Professor of Sociology of Social and Health Issues, and aims to explore and address contemporary challenges related to care, understood as a complex phenomenon that concerns both people's health and the social, institutional and economic contexts in which it takes place.

Through an interdisciplinary approach, the Competence centre for care, health and society will analyse care in all its complexity, integrating professional, social, technological, organisational and public policy perspectives. Research activities will focus on care work and healthcare professions, the impact of technology in care contexts, the functioning of healthcare and social care systems and public policy, as well as the social and transformative processes that characterise the phenomenon of care.

The Competence centre for care, health and society will be divided into four disciplinary areas and a Quantitative Studies Laboratory, described below:

• Nursing sciences: integrates clinical practice, training and organisational models with the aim of improving the quality of care;
• Humanities and social sciences: analyses care in its social, cultural and ethical aspects;
• Health economics and policy: studies care systems, health policies and the economic sustainability of services, in support of decision-making and governance processes;
• Computational and behavioural social sciences: uses data analysis and computational models to study behaviours, interactions and social dynamics relevant to the phenomenon of care;
• LabStat Laboratory: supports research activities through the design of study plans and quantitative data analysis, contributing to the production of empirical evidence.

The Centre will also have a range of research infrastructure available to its members and, upon request, to institutional partners and stakeholders, for the development of advanced research projects:

• CATI/CAWI Lab: conducts surveys on populations and samples through the collection of primary data;
• Platforms for the collection and analysis of data from social media: tools for the acquisition, processing and analysis of digital content (social media, audiovisual scripts, online content);
• Clawdite: platform for conducting behavioural experiments with the integration of biometric measurements (FitBit, BrainBit, Empathica watches);
• Virtual Machine: computational infrastructure for the management and analysis of large volumes of data, including sensitive data.

For more information on the Competence centre for care, health and society, the team, projects and publications, please visit the updated website: https://www.cares.supsi.ch.

‘We address the complexity of care with integrated visions and methods, combining different disciplines to promote effective, ethical and socially sustainable models of care.’
Maria Caiata Zufferey, Head of the Competence centre for care, health and society