Catherine Will
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 257859 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Catherine Will |
| PRENOMES | Catherine |
| SOBRENOME | Will |
| ASSINATURA | WILL C |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Sussex |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7224-714X |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 21 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 85 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 21 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2005 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2023 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
The contribution of Professor Bruno Latour to the sociology of health and illness
The Logics of Invited and Uninvited Material Participation
This paper addresses debates concerning the ‘participatory turn’ in healthcare. It focuses on the case of blood pressure self-monitoring, understanding this as a form of patient participation at the level of individual care. Drawing and expanding on the work of Marres and Wynne and their notions of material participation and of uninvited engagement, we examine how patients’ home blood pressure self-monitoring is incorporated into clinical care, h…
Navigating standards, encouraging interconnections
Apps, websites and networked devices now offer to help consumers produce, access and share health knowledge, precipitating social scientific concern over the consequences of these so-called digital health platforms. This paper makes a novel contribution to this literature, taking up a recent call from Plantin et al. to adopt an infrastructural lens in exploring platforms. It argues, through empirical analysis of digital health platforms of differ…
‘And breathe…’? The sociology of health and illness in Covid ‐19 time
This note was written on 1st April – April Fool's Day - 2020 when we all vehemently wished that the global COVID-19 pandemic could be forgotten as a bad joke. I put the date because at this point it feels that no one knows where we are going over the next few weeks and months, and it is curiously exposing to write in the centre of the pandemic. Typically a research note for our journal is meant to cover 'a topical issue and/or an issue that has b…
Everyday curation? Attending to data, records and record keeping in the practices of self-monitoring
This paper is concerned with everyday data practices, considering how people record data produced through self-monitoring. The analysis unpacks the relationships between taking a measure, and making and reviewing records. The paper is based on an interview study with people who monitor their blood pressure and/or body mass index/weight. Animated by discussions of 'data power' which are, in part, predicated on the flow and aggregation of data, we …
Negotiating the practical ethics of 'self-tracking' in intimate relationships
The problem and the productivity of ignorance
This article offers a critical account of efforts to engage people with the issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It analyses how public health workers encourage what they understand as responsible antibiotic use or antibiotic stewardship, and how their efforts are shaped by different theories of 'behaviour' or social action. Discourse analysis of all major UK campaigns and their evaluations over the last two decades reveals how different vers…
Processing the pandemic
The worldwide COVID-19 crisis has highlighted perhaps more than ever before in the history of SHI the need for a critical sociological lens alongside the clinical, public health and organisational discussion of the current pandemic as it continues through 2020. In particular, debates around social inequalities in health and medicine have received new attention globally. A research note by one of us (Will, 1) suggested in the spring that sociologi…
Constituting practices, shaping markets
Commercial actors play a key role in promoting public health agendas as they move into space previously occupied by the state-sponsored health sector and welfare state. This paper examines how marketing of digital self-monitoring devices promotes public health. Existing self-monitoring research often separates or compares positions of commercial actors and users, using a discourse lens to examine commercial actors’ ‘expectations’ and ‘promises’, …
Thinking with care infrastructures
The growing consumer market in health monitoring devices means that technologies that were once the preserve of the clinic are moving into spaces such as homes and workplaces. We consider how one such device, blood pressure monitors, comes to be integrated into everyday life. We pursue the concept of 'care infrastructure', drawing on recent scholarship in STS and medical sociology, to illuminate the work and range of people, things and spaces inv…
On difference and doubt as tools for critical engagement with public health
This paper argues that critical public health should reengage with public health as practice by drawing on versions of Science and Technology Studies (STS) that ‘de-centre the human’ and by seeking alternative forms of critique to work inspired by Foucault. Based on close reading of work by Annemarie Mol, John Law, Vicky Singleton and others, I demonstrate that these authors pursue a conversation with Foucault but suggest new approaches to studyi…
Materiality matters
Previous scholarship on novel foods, including functional foods, has suggested that they are difficult to categorise for both regulators and users. It is argued that they blur the boundary between 'food' and 'drug' and that uncertainties about the products create 'experimental' or 'restless' approaches to consumption. We investigate these uncertainties drawing on data about the use of functional foods containing phytosterols, which are licensed f…
Sustained multiplicity in everyday cholesterol reduction
This article is concerned with talk about and the practices of healthy living in relation to cholesterol reduction. It draws on qualitative interviews with 89 people who are current or former users of either cholesterol-lowering functional foods or statins for cardiovascular risk reduction. Focusing on data about everyday activities including food preparation, shopping and exercise, we illustrate four repertoires that feature in talk about choles…
Do-it-yourself heart health? 'Lay' practices and products for disease prevention
This paper considers how ‘health behaviours’ are imagined and practised in contemporary society, considering the combination of commercial products such as over the counter (OTC) statins and functional foods with more established ‘healthy behaviours’ in everyday life. Using data from users of low dose statins licensed for OTC sale in the UK and functional foods, we consider policy fears that such products would dilute efforts at healthy living. I…
‘Prevention is better than cure, but …’
Preventive health remains at the forefront of public health concerns; recent initiatives, such as the NHS health check, may lead to recommendations for medication in response to the identification of ‘at risk’ individuals. Little is known about lay views of preventive medication. This paper uses the case of aspirin as a prophylactic against heart disease to explore views among people invited to screening for a trial investigating the efficacy of …
Mutual Benefit, Added Value
The National Health Service (NHS) has recently been the focus of government efforts to retain pharmaceutical research in the UK. Efforts to foster new partnerships between healthcare providers and industry have been framed with suggestions that clinical trials can offer ‘patient benefit’ within the NHS, cutting across ethical and sociological concerns with the possible tension between doing research and offering care. This paper draws on ethnogra…
Genetic unexceptionalism
The management of enthusiasm
Debates about appropriate action in medicine often turn on finding the right emotional orientation to new developments. In this article enthusiasm emerges as a key term in a professional 'vocabulary of motive' around innovation, complicating current sociological interest in expectations. The negative associations that adhere to this word among clinical researchers indicate awareness with the difficulty of managing hype and public hopes, but analy…
Identifying Effectiveness in ''The Old Old
This article explores some implications of the increasing reliance on clinical trials in contemporary health care, particularly health care payers' efforts to use them in the so-called fourth hurdle decisions. How do these agencies manage medical uncertainty given the desire to produce clear guidelines for clinicians? Their solutions take account of trials in at least two ways, reflecting broader debates about the meaning of these medical experim…
The Alchemy of Clinical Trials
Arguing about the evidence
This paper examines the history of tools developed to assess an individual's risk of coronary heart disease. A close reading of the tools themselves is combined with an analysis of debates published in medical journals such as the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and The Lancet. These literary conversations between scientists and doctors reveal complex negotiations about the form and meaning of medical technologies that have yet to become fully 'sta…
Thinking with care infrastructures
The growing consumer market in health monitoring devices means that technologies that were once the preserve of the clinic are moving into spaces such as homes and workplaces. We consider how one such device, blood pressure monitors, comes to be integrated into everyday life. We pursue the concept of 'care infrastructure', drawing on recent scholarship in STS and medical sociology, to illuminate the work and range of people, things and spaces inv…
Arguing about the evidence
This paper examines the history of tools developed to assess an individual's risk of coronary heart disease. A close reading of the tools themselves is combined with an analysis of debates published in medical journals such as the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and The Lancet. These literary conversations between scientists and doctors reveal complex negotiations about the form and meaning of medical technologies that have yet to become fully 'sta…
Sustained multiplicity in everyday cholesterol reduction
This article is concerned with talk about and the practices of healthy living in relation to cholesterol reduction. It draws on qualitative interviews with 89 people who are current or former users of either cholesterol-lowering functional foods or statins for cardiovascular risk reduction. Focusing on data about everyday activities including food preparation, shopping and exercise, we illustrate four repertoires that feature in talk about choles…
The problem and the productivity of ignorance
This article offers a critical account of efforts to engage people with the issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It analyses how public health workers encourage what they understand as responsible antibiotic use or antibiotic stewardship, and how their efforts are shaped by different theories of 'behaviour' or social action. Discourse analysis of all major UK campaigns and their evaluations over the last two decades reveals how different vers…
Genetic unexceptionalism
Everyday curation? Attending to data, records and record keeping in the practices of self-monitoring
This paper is concerned with everyday data practices, considering how people record data produced through self-monitoring. The analysis unpacks the relationships between taking a measure, and making and reviewing records. The paper is based on an interview study with people who monitor their blood pressure and/or body mass index/weight. Animated by discussions of 'data power' which are, in part, predicated on the flow and aggregation of data, we …
Negotiating the practical ethics of 'self-tracking' in intimate relationships
The management of enthusiasm
Debates about appropriate action in medicine often turn on finding the right emotional orientation to new developments. In this article enthusiasm emerges as a key term in a professional 'vocabulary of motive' around innovation, complicating current sociological interest in expectations. The negative associations that adhere to this word among clinical researchers indicate awareness with the difficulty of managing hype and public hopes, but analy…
Identifying Effectiveness in ''The Old Old
This article explores some implications of the increasing reliance on clinical trials in contemporary health care, particularly health care payers' efforts to use them in the so-called fourth hurdle decisions. How do these agencies manage medical uncertainty given the desire to produce clear guidelines for clinicians? Their solutions take account of trials in at least two ways, reflecting broader debates about the meaning of these medical experim…
Mutual Benefit, Added Value
The National Health Service (NHS) has recently been the focus of government efforts to retain pharmaceutical research in the UK. Efforts to foster new partnerships between healthcare providers and industry have been framed with suggestions that clinical trials can offer ‘patient benefit’ within the NHS, cutting across ethical and sociological concerns with the possible tension between doing research and offering care. This paper draws on ethnogra…
Do-it-yourself heart health? 'Lay' practices and products for disease prevention
This paper considers how ‘health behaviours’ are imagined and practised in contemporary society, considering the combination of commercial products such as over the counter (OTC) statins and functional foods with more established ‘healthy behaviours’ in everyday life. Using data from users of low dose statins licensed for OTC sale in the UK and functional foods, we consider policy fears that such products would dilute efforts at healthy living. I…
Arguing about the evidence
This paper examines the history of tools developed to assess an individual's risk of coronary heart disease. A close reading of the tools themselves is combined with an analysis of debates published in medical journals such as the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and The Lancet. These literary conversations between scientists and doctors reveal complex negotiations about the form and meaning of medical technologies that have yet to become fully 'sta…
The Alchemy of Clinical Trials
Identifying Effectiveness in ''The Old Old
This article explores some implications of the increasing reliance on clinical trials in contemporary health care, particularly health care payers' efforts to use them in the so-called fourth hurdle decisions. How do these agencies manage medical uncertainty given the desire to produce clear guidelines for clinicians? Their solutions take account of trials in at least two ways, reflecting broader debates about the meaning of these medical experim…
Genetic unexceptionalism
The management of enthusiasm
Debates about appropriate action in medicine often turn on finding the right emotional orientation to new developments. In this article enthusiasm emerges as a key term in a professional 'vocabulary of motive' around innovation, complicating current sociological interest in expectations. The negative associations that adhere to this word among clinical researchers indicate awareness with the difficulty of managing hype and public hopes, but analy…
‘Prevention is better than cure, but …’
Preventive health remains at the forefront of public health concerns; recent initiatives, such as the NHS health check, may lead to recommendations for medication in response to the identification of ‘at risk’ individuals. Little is known about lay views of preventive medication. This paper uses the case of aspirin as a prophylactic against heart disease to explore views among people invited to screening for a trial investigating the efficacy of …
Mutual Benefit, Added Value
The National Health Service (NHS) has recently been the focus of government efforts to retain pharmaceutical research in the UK. Efforts to foster new partnerships between healthcare providers and industry have been framed with suggestions that clinical trials can offer ‘patient benefit’ within the NHS, cutting across ethical and sociological concerns with the possible tension between doing research and offering care. This paper draws on ethnogra…
Do-it-yourself heart health? 'Lay' practices and products for disease prevention
This paper considers how ‘health behaviours’ are imagined and practised in contemporary society, considering the combination of commercial products such as over the counter (OTC) statins and functional foods with more established ‘healthy behaviours’ in everyday life. Using data from users of low dose statins licensed for OTC sale in the UK and functional foods, we consider policy fears that such products would dilute efforts at healthy living. I…
Sustained multiplicity in everyday cholesterol reduction
This article is concerned with talk about and the practices of healthy living in relation to cholesterol reduction. It draws on qualitative interviews with 89 people who are current or former users of either cholesterol-lowering functional foods or statins for cardiovascular risk reduction. Focusing on data about everyday activities including food preparation, shopping and exercise, we illustrate four repertoires that feature in talk about choles…
Materiality matters
Previous scholarship on novel foods, including functional foods, has suggested that they are difficult to categorise for both regulators and users. It is argued that they blur the boundary between 'food' and 'drug' and that uncertainties about the products create 'experimental' or 'restless' approaches to consumption. We investigate these uncertainties drawing on data about the use of functional foods containing phytosterols, which are licensed f…
On difference and doubt as tools for critical engagement with public health
This paper argues that critical public health should reengage with public health as practice by drawing on versions of Science and Technology Studies (STS) that ‘de-centre the human’ and by seeking alternative forms of critique to work inspired by Foucault. Based on close reading of work by Annemarie Mol, John Law, Vicky Singleton and others, I demonstrate that these authors pursue a conversation with Foucault but suggest new approaches to studyi…
Constituting practices, shaping markets
Commercial actors play a key role in promoting public health agendas as they move into space previously occupied by the state-sponsored health sector and welfare state. This paper examines how marketing of digital self-monitoring devices promotes public health. Existing self-monitoring research often separates or compares positions of commercial actors and users, using a discourse lens to examine commercial actors’ ‘expectations’ and ‘promises’, …
Thinking with care infrastructures
The growing consumer market in health monitoring devices means that technologies that were once the preserve of the clinic are moving into spaces such as homes and workplaces. We consider how one such device, blood pressure monitors, comes to be integrated into everyday life. We pursue the concept of 'care infrastructure', drawing on recent scholarship in STS and medical sociology, to illuminate the work and range of people, things and spaces inv…
Navigating standards, encouraging interconnections
Apps, websites and networked devices now offer to help consumers produce, access and share health knowledge, precipitating social scientific concern over the consequences of these so-called digital health platforms. This paper makes a novel contribution to this literature, taking up a recent call from Plantin et al. to adopt an infrastructural lens in exploring platforms. It argues, through empirical analysis of digital health platforms of differ…
‘And breathe…’? The sociology of health and illness in Covid ‐19 time
This note was written on 1st April – April Fool's Day - 2020 when we all vehemently wished that the global COVID-19 pandemic could be forgotten as a bad joke. I put the date because at this point it feels that no one knows where we are going over the next few weeks and months, and it is curiously exposing to write in the centre of the pandemic. Typically a research note for our journal is meant to cover 'a topical issue and/or an issue that has b…
Everyday curation? Attending to data, records and record keeping in the practices of self-monitoring
This paper is concerned with everyday data practices, considering how people record data produced through self-monitoring. The analysis unpacks the relationships between taking a measure, and making and reviewing records. The paper is based on an interview study with people who monitor their blood pressure and/or body mass index/weight. Animated by discussions of 'data power' which are, in part, predicated on the flow and aggregation of data, we …
Negotiating the practical ethics of 'self-tracking' in intimate relationships
The problem and the productivity of ignorance
This article offers a critical account of efforts to engage people with the issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It analyses how public health workers encourage what they understand as responsible antibiotic use or antibiotic stewardship, and how their efforts are shaped by different theories of 'behaviour' or social action. Discourse analysis of all major UK campaigns and their evaluations over the last two decades reveals how different vers…
Processing the pandemic
The worldwide COVID-19 crisis has highlighted perhaps more than ever before in the history of SHI the need for a critical sociological lens alongside the clinical, public health and organisational discussion of the current pandemic as it continues through 2020. In particular, debates around social inequalities in health and medicine have received new attention globally. A research note by one of us (Will, 1) suggested in the spring that sociologi…
The Logics of Invited and Uninvited Material Participation
This paper addresses debates concerning the ‘participatory turn’ in healthcare. It focuses on the case of blood pressure self-monitoring, understanding this as a form of patient participation at the level of individual care. Drawing and expanding on the work of Marres and Wynne and their notions of material participation and of uninvited engagement, we examine how patients’ home blood pressure self-monitoring is incorporated into clinical care, h…
The contribution of Professor Bruno Latour to the sociology of health and illness
Sociology (18 obras) · Medicine (15 obras) · Political science (15 obras) · Public relations (12 obras) · Law (10 obras) · Psychology (10 obras) · Computer Science (6 obras) · Business (5 obras) · Epistemology (5 obras) · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology (5 obras)