Elspeth Davies (2020)

Anthropology of biomedicine, cancer, early detection, diagnosis, risk stratification, ‘hard-to-reach’ communities, inequalities, evidence, psychology, cures and care.

Elspeth's work seeks to help Cancer Research UK understand some of the social and ethical issues surrounding efforts to diagnose risk in the hope of preventing oesophageal cancer. She is interested in what it means to live 'at risk' of disease - for the people who become patients, and for the clinicians, healthcare services and communities that must care for these people who are not 'ill' but might be in the future. Using ethnographic fieldwork with scientists and in patient support groups, her work seeks to make a range of stakeholders' experiences of diagnosing and living with cancer risk visible.