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On remedicalisation: male circumcision in the United States and Great Britain
Author(s) -
Carpenter Laura M.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2009.01233.x
Subject(s) - grassroots , gender studies , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , political science , male circumcision , criminology , sociology , medicine , economic growth , demography , family medicine , population , law , health services , politics , economics
This paper compares the histories of male circumcision in the United States and Great Britain to explicate the theoretically important, yet inadequately specified, processes of demedicalisation and remedicalisation. Circumcision became medicalised to a similar extent, through similar processes, in both countries before World War II. However, by the 1960s, circumcision was almost completely demedicalised in Britain and almost universal in the US, where it became partially demedicalised after the 1970s. Medical professionals and insurance/healthcare systems drove demedicalisation in both countries; in the US, grassroots activists also played a critical role, while medical community ‘holdovers’ and parents resisted demedicalisation. Recent research linking circumcision to HIV prevention and deaths following religious circumcision are differentially likely to produce remedicalisation in the two nations, given differences in circumcision prevalence, HIV epidemiology, insurance/health systems, activism opportunities, and status of religious groups. Research on (de/re)medicalisation should theorise the life cycle of medicalisation, explore comparative cases, and attend more closely to medical holdovers from previous eras, prevalence and duration of medicalised practices, and barriers to promoting non‐medical interpretations.