An ethnography of ‘overdiagnosis’: The ethics and epistemics of criticising cancer screening
Dr. Elspeth Davies (University of Oxford)
For decades, public health campaigns in the UK and elsewhere have promoted the idea that ‘cancer early detection saves lives’. This paper explores a growing field of research that seeks to challenge this now seemingly common-sense assertion. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at seminars and conferences on the issue of ‘overdiagnosis’, we meet academics who have become critics of mainstream cancer screening and early detection interventions. The talk describes how knowledge is constructed and contested (or not) in this controversial and emotionally fraught field. Finally, it considers the ethics of disputing the status quo, for biomedical researchers and anthropologists alike.
Elspeth Davies recently received her doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She is now working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, where she uses ethnographic methods to explore the social and ethical issues surrounding new and existing cancer screening programmes.