Health, Technology and Society: A Sociological Critique

by Andrew Webster

Overview

Health, Technology and Society looks at a range of current innovative health technologies, asking what the impetus is behind these systems, how they compare with and relate to the long tradition of health technology, and what new questions they pose for healthcare providers, users and regulators. In doing so, it explores how far new health technologies change the boundaries between the body, health, technology relationship, and assess the contribution a critical social science can make towards our understanding of this shift. At a time when many new developments are taking place in healthcare technologies, and when healthcare systems across the globe are increasingly underpinned by infrastructures dependent on information and communication technologies, this book addresses a key issue in current teaching and practice across a range of fields.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781403995254
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/01/2007
Edition description:	2007
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

ANDREW WEBSTER is Director of the Science and Technology Studies Unit and Head of Department of Sociology at the University of York, UK. He directed the ESRC/MRC Innovative Health Technologies Programme and now is national co-ordinator of the ESRC's Stem Cells initiative. He held an ANU Research Fellowship to Australia in 2006. He is the author of many books and articles. Recent publications include Contested Futures: Mobilising tomorrow's science and technology, Introductory Sociology (Palgrave), Science Technology & Society: New Directions (Palgrave), and New Medical Technologies and Society: Reordering Life.
ANDREW WEBSTER is Director of the Science and Technology Studies Unit and Head of Department of Sociology at the University of York, UK. He directed the ESRC/MRC Innovative Health Technologies Programme and now is national co-ordinator of the ESRC's Stem Cells initiative. He held an ANU Research Fellowship to Australia in 2006. He is the author of many books and articles. Recent publications include Contested Futures: Mobilising tomorrow's science and technology, Introductory Sociology (Palgrave), Science Technology & Society: New Directions (Palgrave), and New Medical Technologies and Society: Reordering Life.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Understanding Innovative Health Technologies
The Dynamics of Biomedical Innovation
Corporate Health, Markets and Regulation
Body, Identity and the Meaning of Health
Managing and Governing New Health Technologies
The Contested Sick Role
Conclusion: Novel Technologies, New Social Relations?

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Shortlisted for the BSA Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize. I believe Andrew Webster's Health, Technology and Society...has the potential to entice and enthuse readers into the challenging world of the sociology of medical science and technology...It offers readers not only an overview of significant changes in the relationship between health care and technology but also a conceptual vocabulary and perspective to understand those changes.' - Sociology of Health and Illness