Jenny Donovan is Professor of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol.|The driving force in her research has been to understand the perspectives of individuals, to set these in the context of social groups, and to use this understanding to improve health and health care delivery. She has made important contributions to our understanding of medication-taking and the experiences of patients with chronic diseases. She has been responsible for integrating qualitative measures in the ProtecT study, which is the largest randomised trial of treatments for localised prostate cancer in the world. Its multi-disciplinary design will address key controversies about the aetiology, progression and treatment of prostate cancer, as well as the potential impact of population screening|