Experiences of Health Risks : Prevention, Power Dynamics and Inequalities

Abstract

This book focuses on health risks, a domain in which risk expansion has been particularly prolific. As a result of massive gains in scientific knowledge, made possible by statistical developments, data accumulation and computerisation over the last decades, more and more attention has been geared towards risks in the fields of public health and medicine. Specifically directed towards concrete experiences of health risks, the book analyses the social contexts in which these experiences occur to understand how people, in their diverse positions, actually think, feel, act, and interact around experiences of risk. The author argues that recurrent debates about risk exist because most of the time the notion leaves aside the complexity of social processes surrounding actual experiences and interpretations of vulnerability and danger in society. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology of health and medicine and risk studies, as well as health professionals and policy-makers facing the complexity of acting and deciding in the risk society.