The Sociology of Medical Screening: Critical Perspectives, New Directions

As advancements in technology make it possible to screen for an increasing number of medical conditions, this key strategy of preventive medicine raises fundamental issues for sociological inquiry. This has provoked a need for a cohesive and well–developed sociology of medical screening. The Sociology of Medical Screening: Critical Perspectives, New Directions presents an authoritative and up–to–date overview of the diverse sociological issues relating to population–based medical screening. The Editors′ introductory chapter identifies the salient sociological questions pertinent to medical screening, reflects on the sociology of screening to date and sociology′s potential contribution to wider debates about screening, and finally presents possible future research directions. The next chapter presents a genealogy of screening and serves as an interesting accompaniment. Subsequent chapters present a collection of exciting new works that examine and demonstrate current sociological concerns from a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. The Sociology of Medical Screening offers timely and important insights into the complex and myriad social implications of screening in the modern age.

Notes on Contributors vii

1 The sociology of medical screening: past, present and future 1
Natalie Armstrong and Helen Eborall

2 Screening: mapping medicine s temporal spaces 17
David Armstrong

3 The experience of risk as measured vulnerability : health screening and lay uses of numerical risk 33
Chris Gillespie

4 Expanded newborn screening: articulating the ontology of diseases with bridging work in the clinic 47
Stefan Timmermans and Mara Buchbinder

5 Resisting the screening imperative: patienthood, populations and politics in prostate cancer detection technologies for the UK 60
Alex Faulkner

6 A molecular monopoly? HPV testing, the Pap smear and the molecularisation of cervical cancer screening in the USA 73
Stuart Hogarth, Michael M. Hopkins and Victor Rodriguez

7 Blind spots and adverse conditions of care: screening migrants for tuberculosis in France and Germany 90
Janina Kehr

8 Let s have it tested first : choice and circumstances in decision–making following positive antenatal screening in Hong Kong 105
Alison Pilnick and Olga Zayts

9 Representing and intervening: doing good care in fi rst trimester prenatal knowledge production and decision–making 121
Nete Schwennesen and Lene Koch

10 Wakey wakey baby : narrating four–dimensional (4D) bonding scans 136
Julie Roberts

Index 151

Natalie Armstrong is lecturer in Social Science Applied to Health at the University of Leicester. A medical sociologist, Dr. Armstrong has previously held research posts at the University of Warwick and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Helen Eborall is lecturer in Social Science Applied to Health at the University of Leicester, having previously worked as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge.