Configuring Health Consumers: Health Work and the Imperative of Personal Responsibility (Health, Technology and Society)

Public Health Policy In Western Countries Increasingly Emphasises Citizens' Personal Responsibility For Their Own Health. Strategies To Encourage People To Lessen Their Reliance On Traditional Forms Of Health Care Often Involve New Technologies That Are Intended To Facilitate Better Access To Health Information And Enable Opportunities For Self-care. 'community-based' Health Care Service Delivery Models Have Emerged Hand-in-hand With Discourses Of 'patient-centred Care', 'shared Decision Making', 'consumer Health Information' And Patient 'autonomy' And 'empowerment'. In This Book, Contributors Unpack These Discourses And Discuss Their Implications For Relationships Between Patients And Their Health Care Providers, Including The Increasingly Contested Boundaries Of Medical 'expertize'. A Distinctive Contribution Of This Book Is To Bring Together Recent Discussions About Health 'consumerism' And Self-care With Developments In The Sociology Of Work To Make Visible The Restructuring Of Health-related Labour, Particularly Emerging Forms Of Health 'work' That Are Increasingly Expected Of Private Citizens. Health(y) Citizenship: Technology, Work And Narratives Of Responsibility; S. Wyatt, R. Harris And N. Wathen -- In Sickness And In Health: Public And Private Responsibility For Health Care From Bismarck To Obama; L. Bella -- Power To The Patient? A Critical Examination Of Patient Empowerment Discourses; T. Veinot -- Lay Knowledge: The Missing Middle Of The Expertise Debates; S. Wilcox -- The Rhetorical Work Of Informed Choice In Midwifery: Situated Knowledges And The Negotiation Of Healthcare Decisions; P. Spoel -- Empowerment, Compliance, And The Ethical Subject In Dietetic Work; J. Gingras And L. Aphramor -- Disorder Construction As Lay Work: Examining The Relationship Between Sleep Paralysis Construction And Help-seeking Behaviours; C. Weisgerber -- Facilitating Patients' Hope Work Through Relationship: A Critique Of The Discourse Of Autonomy; P. Salander And C. Moynihan -- The Work Of Clinical Communication In Cancer Care; P. Salmon -- Working For The Cure: Challenging Pink Ribbon Activism; M. Goldenberg -- Impatient On The Net: Exploring The Genres Of Internet Use For Health; M. Bakardjieva -- Sourcing The Crowd For Health Experiences: Letting The People Speak Or Obliging Voice Through Choice?; S. Adams -- Working (it) Out Together: Engaging The Community In E-health Developments For Obesity Management; F. Henwood, L. Carlin, E.s. Guy, A.m. Marshall And H. Smith -- Working To Be Healthy: Empowering Consumers Or Citizens?; R. Harris, N. Wathen And S. Wyatt. Edited By Roma Harris, Nadine Wathen And Sally Wyatt. Includes Bibliographical References And Indexes.