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The article shows how the colonial legacy of intellectual property (IP) reflects the unequal distribution of power between IP owners and those seeking access to medicines. Topics discussed include role of patents as mechanisms of appropriation rooted in the history of feudalism and potential exploitation of the IP system with the exclusion of patients' interest from the process of price setting for life-saving medication like insulin, COVID-19 and influenza vaccines.

The coronavirus pandemic has revived scholarly engagement with the concept of biopolitics, with interpretations diagnosing either the widespread adoption of a classic biopolitical regime or the full‐blown emergence of totalitarian repression (or both of these simultaneously). Relying on a close analysis of different interventions taken by Israeli authorities in response to the pandemic, this article argues that, rather than classic biopolitical strategies, such governmental interventions are better understood in relation to a problem of actual uncertainty. The case of Israel demonstrates how state apparatuses responded to actual uncertainty with technologies that are linked to different rationalities and how these technologies enabled the creation and management of a new milieu. The article further argues that, in making and intervening upon this milieu, state apparatuses employed a particular normalisation strategy that is tied to a form of power that we term encapsulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minds, behaviours and psyches are increasingly and explicitly problematized within social, economic, health, welfare, education and development policy, in both the global North and global South. While this shift is new, it also builds on a long colonial history of the constitution and governance of the 'psy'. This special section considers these developments through critically engaging with them as human technologies whereby certain cognitions, affects and behaviours come to be made knowable, calculable and amenable to technological interventions and quantification. Starting with the concept of human technologies, this special section also seeks to extend it, troubling the prevailing account of technology's role as governmentalization by placing this particular power/knowledge nexus in relation to other historical and current forms of power such as gender, race and coloniality. In this introduction to the special section, 'Human technologies, affect and the global psy-complex', we outline the conceptual and empirical contributions the collection of papers seeks to make. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper points to an underexplored relationship of reinforcement between processes of quantification and digitisation in the construction of mental health as amenable to technological intervention, in India. Increasingly, technology is used to collect mental health data, to diagnose mental health problems, and as a route of mental health intervention and clinical management. At the same time, mental health has become recognised as a new public health priority in India, and within national and global public health agendas. We explore two sites of the technological problematisation of mental health in India: a large-scale survey calculating prevalence, and a smartphone app to manage stress. We show how digital technology is deployed both to frame a 'need' for, and to implement, mental health interventions. We then trace the epistemologies and colonial histories of 'psy' technologies, which question assumptions of digital empowerment and of top-down 'western' imposition. Our findings show that in India such technologies work both to discipline and liberate users. The paper aims to encourage global debate inclusive of those positioned inside and outside of the 'black box' of mental health technology and data production, and to contribute to shaping a future research agenda that analyses quantification and digitisation as key drivers in global advocacy to make mental health count. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this study is the WHO's mhGAP‐Intervention Guide (mhGAP‐IG) 2.0 (2016), an evidence‐based tool and guideline to help detect, diagnose and manage the most common mental disorders, designed for use by non‐specialists globally but particularly in low‐ and middle‐income countries. This research is a starting point in tracing the multiple 'doings' of mhGAP‐IG – connecting questions of how it is 'done' and what does it 'do' – to the living histories and wider global mental health assemblages that make the tool possible and shape its global circulation. We examine the conditions of possibility that produce and legitimate mhGAP‐IG, and the ways these are 'black boxed' through casting mhGAP‐IG in technical rather than epistemological terms. The study illuminates how its explicit design for global expansion positions mhGAP‐IG as open to questioning from those who are technical 'insiders' and setting the epistemological parameters of its own critique. It analyses mhGAP‐IG as an 'inscription device' that inscribes and materialises algorithmic imaginaries of mental health that impact on design and local implementation. This study is one attempt at initiating dialogue with the WHO from perspectives and methodological approaches not usually included in the conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundText-based programs have been shown to effectively address a wide variety of health issues. Although little research examines short message service (SMS) text messaging program characteristics that predict participant retention and attrition, features of SMS text message programs, such as program duration and intensity, message content, and the participants’ context, may have an impact. The impact of stop messages—messages with instructions for how to drop out of an SMS text message program—may be particularly important to investigate. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to describe attrition from Text2BHealthy, a text-based nutrition and physical activity promotion program for parents of low-income elementary school children, and to determine the impact of message content and number of stop messages received on attrition. MethodsUsing data from 972 parents enrolled in Text2BHealthy, we created Kaplan-Meier curves to estimate differences in program duration for different SMS text message types, including nutrition, physical activity, stop, and other messages. Covariates, including rurality and number of stop messages received, were included. ResultsRetention rates by school ranged from 74% (60/81) to 95.0% (132/139), with an average retention rate of 85.7% (833/972) across all schools. Program duration ranged from 7 to 282 days, with a median program duration of 233 days and an average program duration of 211.7 days. Among those who dropped out, program duration ranged from 7 to 247 days, with a median program duration of 102.5 days. Receiving a stop message increased the probability of attrition compared with receiving messages about nutrition, physical activity, or other topics (hazard ratio=51.5, 95% CI 32.46-81.7; P