Sociologies of precision medicine

Barbara Prainsack

Chapter 28 in Handbook on the Sociology of Health and Medicine, 2023, pp 439-454 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Very broadly, Precision Medicine refers to the tailoring of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment to individual (e.g. molecular, clinical, behavioural) characteristics of patients. It can be seen as the latest iteration of a quest for greater personalisation in medicine, which has taken different forms throughout history and in different places. At present, Precision Medicine is most developed in oncology, where it is used to give patients whose cancer is driven by specific genetic and other molecular variants treatments that target these disease-causing factors. Most visions of Precision Medicine go much wider in that they aim to comprise all fields of medical practice and integrate ever wider types of information about patients. Precision Medicine also signifies a commitment to specific rationales, including efficiency and standardisation. This chapter discusses critical issues examined by social science scholarship on Precision Medicine, and it highlights several aspects that arguably deserve more attention.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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