Pickersgill, Martyn
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
Digital artefacts and infrastructures have been presented as ever more urgent and necessary for mental health research and practice. Telepsychiatry, mHealth, and now digital psychiatry have been promoted in this regard, among other endeavours. Smartphone apps have formed a particular focus of promissory statements regarding the improvement of epist...
Sanders, Tom Elliott, Jackie Norman, Paul Johnson, Barbara Heller, Simon
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
We utilise Bury's (1982) biographical disruption to examine young people's experiences of type 1 diabetes. Our findings show that young adults adopted various 'subject positions' across different illness contexts. The subject positions deployed are intended to produce a particular kind of normal embodied identity unaffected by diabetes. First, part...
Lorne, Colin McDonald, Ruth Walshe, Kieran Coleman, Anna
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
In this paper, we examine how space is integral to the practices and politics of restructuring health and care systems and services and specifically how ideas of assemblage can help understand the remaking of a region. We illustrate our arguments by focusing on health and social care devolution in Greater Manchester, England. Emphasising the open-e...
Stewart, Ellen
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
The "problem" of public resistance to hospital closure is a recurring trope in health policy debates around the world. Recent papers have argued that when it comes to major change to hospitals, "the public" cannot be persuaded by clinical evidence, and that mechanisms of public involvement are ill-equipped to reconcile opposition with management de...
Maslen, Sarah Lupton, Deborah
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
This article presents findings from a qualitative study concerning Australian women's use of Facebook for health and medical information and support and the implications for understanding modes of lay knowledge and expertise. Thinking with feminist new materialism theory, we identify the relational connections, affective forces and agential capacit...
Albert, Katelin
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
With the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine positioned as the "right tool" to protect girls' health and sexual health, public discourse positions parents as "responsible" if they vaccinate, "irresponsible" if they do not. The problem with this binary, however, is that it cannot account for the full spectrum of responsibilities and social norms that...
Hardey, Mariann Maz
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
Contributing to critical digital health research and the sociology of health consumption, this study investigates the phenomenon of self-tracking and interpretation of consumer data via wearable technology and mobile fitness software applications (apps). It critically analyses qualitative data collected from members of running communities in the UK...
Cain, Cindy L McCleskey, Sara
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
The range of end-of-life options is expanding across North America. Specifically, medical aid in dying (AID), or the process by which a patient with a terminal illness may request medical assistance with hastening death, has recently become legal in eight jurisdictions in the United States and all of Canada. Debates about AID often rely on cultural...
F Rodrigues, Carla Lopes, Noémia Hardon, Anita
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
With an increasing range of products in global and local markets, more options are available for individuals to enhance their image and their (cognitive, social and physical) performance. These 'performance consumptions' relate to ideals of well-being and improvement, and are based on constructed desires, expectations and needs that go beyond the (...
Turowetz, Jason Maynard, Douglas W
Published in
Sociology of health & illness
All diagnosis depends on communication between doctors and patients. This is especially so with behavioural disorders such as autism, where structured interactions involving clinicians and children (e.g. standardised tests) play a key role in diagnosing the condition. Although such interactions are collaborative, we find that when reporting test re...
