Prof Tarani Chandola
Head, Department of Sociology
3917 2066
9.07, 9/F., The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus
Professor Tarani Chandola is the Head of the Department of Sociology and a Professor of Medical Sociology at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), where he also serves as the Co-director of the HKU Stone Centre on Socio-Economic Inequality in Asia. He previously held the role of Director of the Social Sciences Research Centre at HKU (2023-2025) and currently maintains an honorary professorship at the University of Manchester.
Professor Chandola earned his DPhil and MPhil in Sociology from the University of Oxford. His academic excellence is internationally recognized; he is continuously listed among the World's Top 2% Scientists by Stanford/Elsevier (2019 onwards) and received the Social Sciences and Humanities in China Leader Award from Research.com from 2022 to 2026. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the British Sociological Association, and currently serves as the Co-Editor in Chief of SSM Population Health.
Public Impact and Policy Advisory
Dedicated to translating research into societal benefit, Professor Chandola actively influences government policy and workplace health standards. Key advisory roles include:
UK Cabinet Office: Member of the Expert Advisory Group assessing responses to COVID-19.
The Health Foundation: Expert Advisory Group member for the Commission on work and health.
Public Health England: Long-standing advisory board member for the Health and Work theme.
The Work Foundation: Member of the Insecure Work Advisory Group.
DPhil (Sociology): Nuffield College, University of Oxford
MPhil (Sociology): Jesus College, University of Oxford
MA (Sociology): Jawaharlal Nehru University
BA (History): St Stephen’s College, Delhi University
Sociology of Health and Illness/Medical Sociology
Health inequalities
Ageing and social gerontology
Psychosocial factors
Work and Health
Social Science research methods
Quantitative research methods
Social determinants of health and wellbeing
Living and working conditions in the context of disability and ageing
2024: Best mentor prize by the Social for Social Medicine
2023: Research.com Social Sciences and Humanities in China Leader Award
2023: Web of Science highly cited paper
Workplace Stress & Biomarkers
Chandola T, Becker B. (2025). Mondays Really Are More Stressful: The start of the workweek can be a biologically measurable stressor... Scientific American.
Chandola T, Ling W, Rouxel P. (2025). Are anxious Mondays associated with HPA-axis dysregulation? A longitudinal study of older adults in England. Journal of Affective Disorders.
Aging, Caregiving & Disability
Chandola T, Rouxel P, Lou VWQ, et al. (2026). Do home modifications reduce caregiver burden? A cross-sectional analysis... Innovation in Aging.
Yi X, Huo Z, Xiong X, Gräpin KA, Chandola T, et al. (2026). Factors Associated with Caregiving and Mental Stress among Family Caregivers for People with Disabilities... Journal of Urban Health.
Lou VW, Chan SKL, Tang VMW, Chandola T, et al. (2025). Development and Validation of a Carer Need Screening Tool (CNST-11) for Carers of Older Adults. The Gerontologist.
Social Epidemiology Methods & Mental Health
Liu D, Ni Y, Ma TSW, Fan X, Zhan Y, Lam IHL, Lui MCL, Chandola T, et al. (2026). Work-family conflict and mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS Medicine.
Zhao Z, Lallukka T, Chandola T, Britton A. (2026). Bi-directional associations between alcohol consumption and pain among non-manual workers... Alcohol and Alcoholism.
Sun J, Zhang N, Vanhoutte B, Carter J, Wang J, Chandola T. (2025). The J-shaped evolution of subjective wellbeing over the life course in rural China. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies.
Chandola T, Cahill S, Ling W, Kumari M. (2025). Measuring resilience to chronic pain in population surveys using hair cortisol. Psychological Medicine.
Multimedia and Teaching Resources
Sage Video Case Study (2023): Using a natural experiment to improve causal inference from a longitudinal observational study. (Available on Sage Research Methods)
Webinar: Foundations June Webinar - Home adaptions and disability outcomes among older adults living in England.
Open Lectures: Tarani Chandola - Work, health and wellbeing: some biosocial perspectives
Open Lectures: Does accounting for missing data in social surveys make a difference? - Tarani Chandola
Open Lectures: What is Latent Class Analysis?