Search

Risk and uncertainty can destabilise and reconstruct the relationships between medicine, policy and publics. Through semi-structured interviews with medical staff following the Fukushima 3.11 Disaster, this paper demonstrates the way in which disruption (caused by disaster), coupled with uncertainty (in this case, around radiation risk) can serve to transform medical practices. After Fukushima, a deficit in publicly-trusted approaches to disaster management meant that the role and status of key medical professionals was transformed. This reorganisation of medical work included the development of new forms of expertise, the stretching of expertise beyond previously well-defined professional boundaries, and shifts in the way in which medical professionals understand and interact with publics. These changes signified the rise of new relationships between the medical workers and their community, as well as adjustments in what were regarded as the boundaries of medical work. Given both the ubiquitous threat of disasters and calls for increased engagement between the medicine and the public, this case study provides insight into the forms which such engagements can take, especially when bound by conditions of uncertainty. The paper draws upon the theoretical literature around the impact of uncertainty on policy, and combines this with medical sociological literature on the nature of medical expertise. The paper examines the shifting of medical expertise towards mode 2 forms, and evidences the impact of a democratised science of risk on the roles and functions of medical practice.

Research on health and disasters within the social sciences and public health is produced from a wide range of methodological and disciplinary perspectives. Major disaster events continue to highlight the need for health and disaster researchers to further reflect on the procedural and practical aspects of research ethics. We conduct a scoping review and qualitative frame analysis of 76 empirical articles from 2000 onwards, with the aim of uncovering the dominant framings of 'ethical practice' within health and disaster literature. The review demonstrates that the literature presents competing framings of risk – namely, a more individualist and biomedical understanding of trauma, and a focus on community-level and contextual aspects of risk, respectively. These competing frames of risk determine how different parts of the field negotiate ethical processes and practices. Additional points of tension are found in the way in which disaster-affected people and places are characterised as (or as not) particularly vulnerable, and the role of formal ethical review committees. This review synthesises proposed solutions from literature to improve both procedural and practical ethics and finds there are continued disagreements surrounding even the most frequently called-for changes. The contrasting framings of ethics problems and solutions within this field indicate the need for consensus around the practical ethics of health and disaster research. Further reflection is warranted for more coherent engagement between this research field and disaster-affected communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the construction of avian influenza in Australian media and federal government policy, with a focus placed on discourses of contagion, preparedness and risk. The threat of an infectious disease outbreak, such as avian influenza, on social life is surrounded by a range of collective narratives which attempt to make it explicable. These narratives socially define the disease and provide explanations for its existence. The paper demonstrates that central to these narratives are depictions of the source of the outbreak and suggestions of appropriate responses to the threat. Methodologically, a narrative analysis of print media and government documents was conducted. This showed that conceptually both government and media discourses could be understood in terms of risk, contagion and blame. Furthermore, it was found that narratives linking the risk of avian influenza with globalised interconnectedness and contagion by the developing world underpin discourses of causation and frame the reactions to and preparation for a potential outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, avian influenza has recently spread around the world sparking fears of a potential pandemic. As a result of this, a range of explanations and expectations surrounding the phenomenon were generated. Such social representations of disease depict the issue under discussion and frame reactions to the event. This paper explores the social representations surrounding avian influenza in Australia. Methodologically, a textual analysis of media and government documents was conducted in order to uncover the social representations implicit in these accounts. This demonstrated a symbolic framing of avian influenza with reference to the Spanish Influenza pandemic (1918). Analytically, the study draws upon the concepts of social representations from Durkheim and of risk and symbolic risk in the work of Beck. Overall, it is argued that the framing of avian influenza as a risk, mediated through the collective memory of Spanish Influenza, characterised the nature of the social representations surrounding the phenomenon. This resulted in the production of symbolic solutions to the threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]