Projects by Theme
Genetics area (testing, therapy, screening etc.)
| Risk | Main features: projects focus on a range of clinical settings; they deploy ethnographic, observational techniques and survey methods; genetic interventions associated with new reproductive technologies, cancer, and blood disorders explore the social processes behind risk allocation; geneticisation of disease is a strong cross-cutting theme; public trust, understanding and governance of the new genetics figure as do issues surrounding the boundary between the body and personal identity. |
| Identity | |
| Innovation | |
| Governance | |
| Social Management of Health | |
| Social Inclusion and Exclusion |
Informatics area (NHSDirect, telemed, internet)
| Risk | Main features: Projects explore the implications of new information sourcing (such as 'e-health' via the internet) and the impact of tele-health with the advent of NHSDirect: key issues include changes in professional/lay relations, notions of patient empowerment; the way conventional classifications of health and illness are being reshaped by ICT-based protocols, and how communication patterns shape the actual diagnosis and delivery of e-health. |
| Identity | |
| Innovation | |
| Governance | |
| Social Management of Health | |
| Social Inclusion and Exclusion |
Drugs
| Risk | Main features: Here projects have a strong political/regulatory focus and adopt a wider comparative analysis. The close relation between innovation, regulation and governance reveals the degree to which technical determinations of safety and utility of new drugs are socially contested and contestable. |
| Identity | |
| Innovation | |
| Governance | |
| Social Management of Health | |
| Social Inclusion and Exclusion |
Enabling and Support Technologies
| Risk | Main features: Some projects here have a primarily historical foundation exploring the innovation process over time strong use of STS; disability and the wheelchair is an important focus of one; craft rather than evidence-based diffusion provides a common theme. Others explore the negotiation of risk and utility surrounding fetal technologies and those used in the home setting for technology-dependent children. |
| Identity | |
| Innovation | |
| Governance | |
| Social Management of Health | |
| Social Inclusion and Exclusion |
Thematic/generic
| Risk | Main features: These projects challenge some long-standing methods for assessing IHTs, in particular their gendered nature - so have wider applicability across all IHT evaluations. |
| Identity | |
| Innovation | |
| Governance | |
| Social Management of Health | |
| Social Inclusion and Exclusion |