Disease and the modern self: becoming autoimmune. This will be the first historical analysis of concepts of autoimmunity. A conceptual history of a disease category, the book will also incorporate patient experience, scientific ideas about the immunological 'self', and an examination of the connections and articulations of research laboratories and hospital clinics in the twentieth century.
The development of Australian community psychiatry. This project aims to analyse recent developments in Australian psychiatry by considering their broader social, cultural, and political contexts. In the 1970s, Australian psychiatry, primarily based in mental hospital care, came under sustained critique by psychologists, psychiatrists interested in developing alternative treatment methods, and broader social movements. This project will investigate how psychiatrists, psychologists, and other men ....The development of Australian community psychiatry. This project aims to analyse recent developments in Australian psychiatry by considering their broader social, cultural, and political contexts. In the 1970s, Australian psychiatry, primarily based in mental hospital care, came under sustained critique by psychologists, psychiatrists interested in developing alternative treatment methods, and broader social movements. This project will investigate how psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals aimed to change mental hospital care and develop community psychiatry to provide alternatives. The project will examine the initiatives of the pioneers in Australian community psychiatry and its relationship to the broader deinstitutionalisation movement. The project will also analyse the resulting changes in research and practice.Read moreRead less
The Cold War Obesity Crisis: Fatness, Public Health, and Medical Science in the United States, 1940-1970. In 1951 the US Public Health Service declared obesity, newly reinterpreted as an addictive disorder, to be the nation’s leading health problem. This project will be the first to study the course of this early obesity crisis, analysing the interaction between popular perception, biomedical science and health policy, all in the political and cultural context of postwar America. Research will e ....The Cold War Obesity Crisis: Fatness, Public Health, and Medical Science in the United States, 1940-1970. In 1951 the US Public Health Service declared obesity, newly reinterpreted as an addictive disorder, to be the nation’s leading health problem. This project will be the first to study the course of this early obesity crisis, analysing the interaction between popular perception, biomedical science and health policy, all in the political and cultural context of postwar America. Research will especially focus on the competing efforts of several biomedical disciplines and their scientific leaders to define the problem and shape responses to it. The goal is to understand the ways science and medicine related to social forces in the episode, and to derive lessons for today’s global obesity crisis.Read moreRead less
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL170100160
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,568,846.00
Summary
A philosophy of medicine for the 21st century. This project aims to develop a new theory of health and disease to accommodate developments in contemporary biology such as the ‘developmental origins of health and disease’, the role of the microbiome in physiology, and the fact that our bodies are sites of evolutionary conflict between multiple genomes, particularly in early life. Present science does not fit with common-sense ideas about the identity and the goals of living systems and the projec ....A philosophy of medicine for the 21st century. This project aims to develop a new theory of health and disease to accommodate developments in contemporary biology such as the ‘developmental origins of health and disease’, the role of the microbiome in physiology, and the fact that our bodies are sites of evolutionary conflict between multiple genomes, particularly in early life. Present science does not fit with common-sense ideas about the identity and the goals of living systems and the project expects to generate a close collaboration between philosophers and biomedical scientists so that new ideas about health and disease can be fed back into proof-of-principle projects for innovative new approaches to the study of health and disease. The project will conduct methodologically innovative research in the philosophy of medicine, working in close collaboration with biomedical scientists to confront the transformational discoveries about the nature of living systems that have been made in the first years of the current century and to actively shape new forms of enquiry into health that reflect those discoveries. It will make the discipline of philosophy an active participant in the creation of integrative biomedical research.Read moreRead less
Tuberculosis in Southern Africa: the history of a pandemic. South Africa and the states which supply workers to the gold mines of Johannesburg today have the highest rates of pulmonary tuberculosis in the world. This project will explore the role of the gold mines in creating a pandemic of a disease which was not so long ago considered to be in permanent retreat.
Climate change and the history of environmental determinism. In previous centuries, most scientists presumed that environment and climate determined human health, capacities and difference. By tracing this longstanding idea through the twentieth century, this project will identify implications for current climate science.
A methodological analysis of the application of evolutionary medicine to non-communicable diseases. This project draws on recent work in philosophy of science to understand how evolutionary thinking can inform medical research. It will analyse how evolutionary thinking contributed to recent advances in understanding diseases such as diabetes and metabolic syndrome, and facilitate extending this approach to new areas of health and disease.
Pursuing Public Health in The Preindustrial World, 1100-1800. This project aims to recover community-health practices in three world regions before the takeoff of European industrialization. It challenges a common chronology and geography in public health history by examining how especially non-urban societies in Europe, the Middle East and India adjusted their behaviors and environments to manage health risks, often relying on the principles of humoral (or Galenic) medicine. A multidisciplinary ....Pursuing Public Health in The Preindustrial World, 1100-1800. This project aims to recover community-health practices in three world regions before the takeoff of European industrialization. It challenges a common chronology and geography in public health history by examining how especially non-urban societies in Europe, the Middle East and India adjusted their behaviors and environments to manage health risks, often relying on the principles of humoral (or Galenic) medicine. A multidisciplinary team will conduct spatial, material, pictorial and text-based analyses, which will collectively extricate public health from Eurocentric narratives of modernization and illuminate preventative-medical cultures often ignored or studied in isolation.Read moreRead less
Culture-bound syndromes, koro, and the emergence of 'cosmopolitan' psychiatry. This historical study examines the concepts of ethnicity used by psychiatrists by focusing on the ways in which one culture-bound syndrome, koro, moved from being exclusively South-East Asian to being found in a number of cultures. It will develop significant understandings of psychiatric conceptions of cultural difference.
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: Fl170100160
Funder
Australian Research Council
Summary
A philosophy of medicine for the 21st century. This project aims to develop a new theory of health and disease to accommodate developments in contemporary biology such as the ‘developmental origins of health and disease’, the role of the microbiome in physiology, and the fact that our bodies are sites of evolutionary conflict between multiple genomes, particularly in early life. Present science does not fit with common-sense ideas about the identity and the goals of living systems and the projec ....A philosophy of medicine for the 21st century. This project aims to develop a new theory of health and disease to accommodate developments in contemporary biology such as the ‘developmental origins of health and disease’, the role of the microbiome in physiology, and the fact that our bodies are sites of evolutionary conflict between multiple genomes, particularly in early life. Present science does not fit with common-sense ideas about the identity and the goals of living systems and the project expects to generate a close collaboration between philosophers and biomedical scientists so that new ideas about health and disease can be fed back into proof-of-principle projects for innovative new approaches to the study of health and disease. The project will conduct methodologically innovative research in the philosophy of medicine, working in close collaboration with biomedical scientists to confront the transformational discoveries about the nature of living systems that have been made in the first years of the current century and to actively shape new forms of enquiry into health that reflect those discoveries. It will make the discipline of philosophy an active participant in the creation of integrative biomedical research.Read moreRead less