Simon Cohn
Biographic Data
| ID | 3581669 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Simon Cohn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Simon |
| FAMILY NAME | Cohn |
| SIGNATURE | COHN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4660-2800 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 168 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Processes and partitions
This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork with palliative care teams in the UK to contrast two logics of end‐of‐life medical care: one oriented towards intervention, the other towards acceptance and accompaniment. Through a series of illustrative cases, the authors describe how each logic not only shapes what practitioners do, but how they imagine the object of their care. The article traces these contrasting practices to different conceptuali…
Not intervening as a form of care
Biomedicine is organized around interventions. Despite growing concern about overtreatment in healthcare systems, not intervening can still raise questions about potential negligence and the quality of care. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with palliative care teams in England, we explore the work palliative care specialists do to reduce and sometimes halt interventions for patients at the end-of-life, in a general medical environment that is lar…
Multidisciplinary team meetings
Multidisciplinary team meetings are part of the everyday working life of palliative care staff. Based on ethnographic material from community and hospital palliative care teams in England, this article examines these meetings as dynamic routines. Although intended to have a prescribed format to review deaths and collect standardised information to monitor service performance, in practice, the content and conduct of the meetings were fluid, reflec…
Human and Person When Life Is Fragile
In this paper, we focus on how medical staff care for people who are dying and on the increasing use of diverse technologies to ease the experience of dying. Because it is accepted patients cannot recover, the primary value to preserve life underpinning much of biomedical practice is contrasted by a commitment to make people's last period of life as fulfilling and meaningful as possible. Drawing on illustrative cases from an ethnography of pallia…
Ways of ‘Being With’
Palliative care professionals often speak of the importance of forming meaningful relationships with patients and their families. Trust and rapport, usually established over extended periods of time through face-to-face interactions, and a ‘gentle honesty’ regarding end-of-life and death are key aspects of developing a sense of intimacy with people who are approaching the end of their lives. A fundamental feature of this intimacy is conveying a s…
Placing death and dying
Over the last decade, policies in both the UK and many other countries have promoted the opportunity for patients at the end of life to be able to choose where to die. Central to this is the expectation that in most instances people would prefer to die at home, where they are more likely to feel most comfortable and less medicalised. In so doing, recording the preferred place of death and reducing the number of hospital deaths have become common …
"We come in as "the nothing
In our ethnographic study of palliative care in a UK medical setting, we concerned ourselves with instances when medical staff chose not do something, which we came to call 'noninterventions'. Such instances raised an obvious question: how does one study something that is not happening? In this Position Piece, we outline three ways in which we have tried to engage with this methodological question, from the initial grant application process to th…
Beyond the person
Many studies of blood donation have looked at the motives of donors, their relationship with the wider society and corresponding values such as gift-giving, altruism and responsibility. These underpin a rhetorical representation of person-to-person donation that neglects the many technical processes that take place between donation and eventual use and the material nature of blood itself. This ethnographic study, conducted in four UK blood donati…
Posthuman perspectives
In this special issue of Critical Public Health the papers collectively explore how certain theoretical perspectives in the social sciences, often termed ‘posthumanism’, might productively be appli
Falling into a routine
In line with the concept of 'nudging' people to change their behaviour, there has been increased attention on habit as a focus for psychologically-based health interventions. It is hoped that behaviours initiated by interventions not only become so regular that they are normalised into people's everyday lives, but that through repetition they may eventually become fixed and habitual. In this paper we draw on people's accounts of participating in …
Diverse bodies
In recent years, medical anthropology has benefited a great deal from debates in science studies, and in particular, the focus on knowledge practices (Pickering, 1995) and epistemic cultures (Knorr Cetina, 1999).At the same time, within anthropology, work exploring post-human orientations-for example, the focus on materiality and the role of objects, human-animal relations, and environmental approaches -have invigorated debate not only about how …
In the loop
Self-monitoring, by which individuals record and appraise ongoing information about the status of their body in order to improve their health, has been a key element in the personal management of conditions such as diabetes, but it is now also increasingly used in relation to health-associated behaviours. The introduction of self-monitoring as an intervention to change behaviour is intended to provide feedback that can be used by individuals to b…
Reconceptualising public acceptability
The issue of public acceptability of health policies is key if they are to have significant and lasting impact. This study, based on focus groups conducted in England, examines the ways people responded to, and made sense of, policy ideas aimed at reducing alcohol consumption. Although effective policies were supported in the abstract, specific proposals were consistently rejected because they were not thought to map onto the fundamental causes o…
Blood and the public body
This paper draws on interview and ethnographic data to describe donor accounts of blood donation in England, and how this contrasts to their responses when invited to also participate in two associated public health research studies. Donor views about usual blood donation combine the general, if flexible, theme of altruism with powerful notions of the social collective, giving rise to the sense that they are making tangible, physical ties and con…
The contribution of media analysis to the evaluation of environmental interventions
This analysis has contributed to the wider evaluation of the busway, helping to understand its nature and implementation and informing hypotheses about how the local population interact with the infrastructure by attending to the significance of representations in the media
Weight loss referrals for adults in primary care (WRAP)
Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN82857232. Date registered: 15/10/2012
From health behaviours to health practices
The concept of health behaviour has become ubiquitous in health-related research and intervention studies, as well as among policymakers. Developed from psychology, it is based on a number of key underlying assumptions that enable it to be integrated in an existing health research paradigm. However, by conceiving individual health behaviour as discrete, stable, homogeneous and measurable, many other aspects of health-related activities, in partic…
Constructing denial as a disease object
As part of the general shift in contemporary healthcare from a focus on specific diseases to treating the whole person, doctors are now expected to be reflective and engage empathetically with patients. Yet, the context of end of life potentially confounds this commitment. Here we draw on the written submissions of UK medical students confronting dying patients to offer insight into a range of entangled issues. Although the exercise is designed t…
Commuting and health in Cambridge
Addressing the unresolved research and policy questions in this area is not straightforward. The challenges include those of effectively combining different disciplinary perspectives on the research problems, developing common methodological ground in measurement and evaluation, implementing robust quantitative measurement of travel and physical activity behaviour in an unpredictable 'natural experiment' setting, defining exposure to the interven…
Petty Cash and the Neuroscientific Mapping of Pleasure
Making objective facts from intimate relations
This article explores the way in which the practice of neuroscience, in the form of contemporary brain-imaging, has to actively define and isolate aspects of mindfulness as solely contained within the individual. Although hidden from final scientific accounts, at the centre of this process is the need for the researchers to forge brief but intimate and personal relationships with the volunteers in their studies. With their increasing interest in …
Contextualising Gulf War illness experience
Early accounts of Gulf War illness and the construction of narratives in UK service personnel
Skilled Visions
Increasing resolution, intensifying ambiguity
This paper argues that current images of the brain are providing a potent way in which human life itself is being constructed. In addition to material conceptions, exemplified by the human genome, scans that claim to illustrate features of the living brain serve to augment these with the idea of life as activity. Drawing from ethnographic research, the paper illustrates how, even among neuroscientists themselves, life is used as an implicit notio…
From health behaviours to health practices
The concept of health behaviour has become ubiquitous in health-related research and intervention studies, as well as among policymakers. Developed from psychology, it is based on a number of key underlying assumptions that enable it to be integrated in an existing health research paradigm. However, by conceiving individual health behaviour as discrete, stable, homogeneous and measurable, many other aspects of health-related activities, in partic…
Increasing resolution, intensifying ambiguity
This paper argues that current images of the brain are providing a potent way in which human life itself is being constructed. In addition to material conceptions, exemplified by the human genome, scans that claim to illustrate features of the living brain serve to augment these with the idea of life as activity. Drawing from ethnographic research, the paper illustrates how, even among neuroscientists themselves, life is used as an implicit notio…
Placing death and dying
Over the last decade, policies in both the UK and many other countries have promoted the opportunity for patients at the end of life to be able to choose where to die. Central to this is the expectation that in most instances people would prefer to die at home, where they are more likely to feel most comfortable and less medicalised. In so doing, recording the preferred place of death and reducing the number of hospital deaths have become common …
Posthuman perspectives
In this special issue of Critical Public Health the papers collectively explore how certain theoretical perspectives in the social sciences, often termed ‘posthumanism’, might productively be appli
Taking time to smell the roses
This paper examines some of the current themes around the contested illness Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It is based on a review of the biomedical literature, both current and historical, and draws from interviews with sufferers of the condition. The paper first outlines some of the propositions underlying the current biomedical use of the general conception a of psychosomatic disorder, and then goes on to contrast these with the general themes in s…
Making objective facts from intimate relations
This article explores the way in which the practice of neuroscience, in the form of contemporary brain-imaging, has to actively define and isolate aspects of mindfulness as solely contained within the individual. Although hidden from final scientific accounts, at the centre of this process is the need for the researchers to forge brief but intimate and personal relationships with the volunteers in their studies. With their increasing interest in …
"We come in as "the nothing
In our ethnographic study of palliative care in a UK medical setting, we concerned ourselves with instances when medical staff chose not do something, which we came to call 'noninterventions'. Such instances raised an obvious question: how does one study something that is not happening? In this Position Piece, we outline three ways in which we have tried to engage with this methodological question, from the initial grant application process to th…
Constructing denial as a disease object
As part of the general shift in contemporary healthcare from a focus on specific diseases to treating the whole person, doctors are now expected to be reflective and engage empathetically with patients. Yet, the context of end of life potentially confounds this commitment. Here we draw on the written submissions of UK medical students confronting dying patients to offer insight into a range of entangled issues. Although the exercise is designed t…
Falling into a routine
In line with the concept of 'nudging' people to change their behaviour, there has been increased attention on habit as a focus for psychologically-based health interventions. It is hoped that behaviours initiated by interventions not only become so regular that they are normalised into people's everyday lives, but that through repetition they may eventually become fixed and habitual. In this paper we draw on people's accounts of participating in …
Not intervening as a form of care
Biomedicine is organized around interventions. Despite growing concern about overtreatment in healthcare systems, not intervening can still raise questions about potential negligence and the quality of care. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with palliative care teams in England, we explore the work palliative care specialists do to reduce and sometimes halt interventions for patients at the end-of-life, in a general medical environment that is lar…
Diverse bodies
In recent years, medical anthropology has benefited a great deal from debates in science studies, and in particular, the focus on knowledge practices (Pickering, 1995) and epistemic cultures (Knorr Cetina, 1999).At the same time, within anthropology, work exploring post-human orientations-for example, the focus on materiality and the role of objects, human-animal relations, and environmental approaches -have invigorated debate not only about how …
In the loop
Self-monitoring, by which individuals record and appraise ongoing information about the status of their body in order to improve their health, has been a key element in the personal management of conditions such as diabetes, but it is now also increasingly used in relation to health-associated behaviours. The introduction of self-monitoring as an intervention to change behaviour is intended to provide feedback that can be used by individuals to b…
Early accounts of Gulf War illness and the construction of narratives in UK service personnel
Multidisciplinary team meetings
Multidisciplinary team meetings are part of the everyday working life of palliative care staff. Based on ethnographic material from community and hospital palliative care teams in England, this article examines these meetings as dynamic routines. Although intended to have a prescribed format to review deaths and collect standardised information to monitor service performance, in practice, the content and conduct of the meetings were fluid, reflec…
Human and Person When Life Is Fragile
In this paper, we focus on how medical staff care for people who are dying and on the increasing use of diverse technologies to ease the experience of dying. Because it is accepted patients cannot recover, the primary value to preserve life underpinning much of biomedical practice is contrasted by a commitment to make people's last period of life as fulfilling and meaningful as possible. Drawing on illustrative cases from an ethnography of pallia…
Reconceptualising public acceptability
The issue of public acceptability of health policies is key if they are to have significant and lasting impact. This study, based on focus groups conducted in England, examines the ways people responded to, and made sense of, policy ideas aimed at reducing alcohol consumption. Although effective policies were supported in the abstract, specific proposals were consistently rejected because they were not thought to map onto the fundamental causes o…
Ownership and control of diabetes
Taking time to smell the roses
This paper examines some of the current themes around the contested illness Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It is based on a review of the biomedical literature, both current and historical, and draws from interviews with sufferers of the condition. The paper first outlines some of the propositions underlying the current biomedical use of the general conception a of psychosomatic disorder, and then goes on to contrast these with the general themes in s…
Increasing resolution, intensifying ambiguity
This paper argues that current images of the brain are providing a potent way in which human life itself is being constructed. In addition to material conceptions, exemplified by the human genome, scans that claim to illustrate features of the living brain serve to augment these with the idea of life as activity. Drawing from ethnographic research, the paper illustrates how, even among neuroscientists themselves, life is used as an implicit notio…
Skilled Visions
Petty Cash and the Neuroscientific Mapping of Pleasure
Making objective facts from intimate relations
This article explores the way in which the practice of neuroscience, in the form of contemporary brain-imaging, has to actively define and isolate aspects of mindfulness as solely contained within the individual. Although hidden from final scientific accounts, at the centre of this process is the need for the researchers to forge brief but intimate and personal relationships with the volunteers in their studies. With their increasing interest in …
Contextualising Gulf War illness experience
Early accounts of Gulf War illness and the construction of narratives in UK service personnel
Commuting and health in Cambridge
Addressing the unresolved research and policy questions in this area is not straightforward. The challenges include those of effectively combining different disciplinary perspectives on the research problems, developing common methodological ground in measurement and evaluation, implementing robust quantitative measurement of travel and physical activity behaviour in an unpredictable 'natural experiment' setting, defining exposure to the interven…
Constructing denial as a disease object
As part of the general shift in contemporary healthcare from a focus on specific diseases to treating the whole person, doctors are now expected to be reflective and engage empathetically with patients. Yet, the context of end of life potentially confounds this commitment. Here we draw on the written submissions of UK medical students confronting dying patients to offer insight into a range of entangled issues. Although the exercise is designed t…
The contribution of media analysis to the evaluation of environmental interventions
This analysis has contributed to the wider evaluation of the busway, helping to understand its nature and implementation and informing hypotheses about how the local population interact with the infrastructure by attending to the significance of representations in the media
Weight loss referrals for adults in primary care (WRAP)
Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN82857232. Date registered: 15/10/2012
From health behaviours to health practices
The concept of health behaviour has become ubiquitous in health-related research and intervention studies, as well as among policymakers. Developed from psychology, it is based on a number of key underlying assumptions that enable it to be integrated in an existing health research paradigm. However, by conceiving individual health behaviour as discrete, stable, homogeneous and measurable, many other aspects of health-related activities, in partic…
Blood and the public body
This paper draws on interview and ethnographic data to describe donor accounts of blood donation in England, and how this contrasts to their responses when invited to also participate in two associated public health research studies. Donor views about usual blood donation combine the general, if flexible, theme of altruism with powerful notions of the social collective, giving rise to the sense that they are making tangible, physical ties and con…
In the loop
Self-monitoring, by which individuals record and appraise ongoing information about the status of their body in order to improve their health, has been a key element in the personal management of conditions such as diabetes, but it is now also increasingly used in relation to health-associated behaviours. The introduction of self-monitoring as an intervention to change behaviour is intended to provide feedback that can be used by individuals to b…
Reconceptualising public acceptability
The issue of public acceptability of health policies is key if they are to have significant and lasting impact. This study, based on focus groups conducted in England, examines the ways people responded to, and made sense of, policy ideas aimed at reducing alcohol consumption. Although effective policies were supported in the abstract, specific proposals were consistently rejected because they were not thought to map onto the fundamental causes o…
Beyond the person
Many studies of blood donation have looked at the motives of donors, their relationship with the wider society and corresponding values such as gift-giving, altruism and responsibility. These underpin a rhetorical representation of person-to-person donation that neglects the many technical processes that take place between donation and eventual use and the material nature of blood itself. This ethnographic study, conducted in four UK blood donati…
Posthuman perspectives
In this special issue of Critical Public Health the papers collectively explore how certain theoretical perspectives in the social sciences, often termed ‘posthumanism’, might productively be appli
Falling into a routine
In line with the concept of 'nudging' people to change their behaviour, there has been increased attention on habit as a focus for psychologically-based health interventions. It is hoped that behaviours initiated by interventions not only become so regular that they are normalised into people's everyday lives, but that through repetition they may eventually become fixed and habitual. In this paper we draw on people's accounts of participating in …
Diverse bodies
In recent years, medical anthropology has benefited a great deal from debates in science studies, and in particular, the focus on knowledge practices (Pickering, 1995) and epistemic cultures (Knorr Cetina, 1999).At the same time, within anthropology, work exploring post-human orientations-for example, the focus on materiality and the role of objects, human-animal relations, and environmental approaches -have invigorated debate not only about how …
"We come in as "the nothing
In our ethnographic study of palliative care in a UK medical setting, we concerned ourselves with instances when medical staff chose not do something, which we came to call 'noninterventions'. Such instances raised an obvious question: how does one study something that is not happening? In this Position Piece, we outline three ways in which we have tried to engage with this methodological question, from the initial grant application process to th…
Ways of ‘Being With’
Palliative care professionals often speak of the importance of forming meaningful relationships with patients and their families. Trust and rapport, usually established over extended periods of time through face-to-face interactions, and a ‘gentle honesty’ regarding end-of-life and death are key aspects of developing a sense of intimacy with people who are approaching the end of their lives. A fundamental feature of this intimacy is conveying a s…
Placing death and dying
Over the last decade, policies in both the UK and many other countries have promoted the opportunity for patients at the end of life to be able to choose where to die. Central to this is the expectation that in most instances people would prefer to die at home, where they are more likely to feel most comfortable and less medicalised. In so doing, recording the preferred place of death and reducing the number of hospital deaths have become common …
Human and Person When Life Is Fragile
In this paper, we focus on how medical staff care for people who are dying and on the increasing use of diverse technologies to ease the experience of dying. Because it is accepted patients cannot recover, the primary value to preserve life underpinning much of biomedical practice is contrasted by a commitment to make people's last period of life as fulfilling and meaningful as possible. Drawing on illustrative cases from an ethnography of pallia…
Multidisciplinary team meetings
Multidisciplinary team meetings are part of the everyday working life of palliative care staff. Based on ethnographic material from community and hospital palliative care teams in England, this article examines these meetings as dynamic routines. Although intended to have a prescribed format to review deaths and collect standardised information to monitor service performance, in practice, the content and conduct of the meetings were fluid, reflec…
Sociology (19 works) · Psychology (18 works) · Medicine (15 works) · Epistemology (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Nursing (10 works) · Ethnography (9 works) · Law (9 works)