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Communicating “Evidence”: Lifestyle, Cancer, and the Promise of a Disease‐free Future
Author(s) -
Bell Kirsten,
RistovskiSlijepcevic Svetlana
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
medical anthropology quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.855
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1548-1387
pISSN - 0745-5194
DOI - 10.1111/maq.12152
Subject(s) - knowledge translation , dissemination , scientific evidence , sociology of scientific knowledge , public relations , knowledge base , knowledge production , cancer prevention , evidence based practice , evidence based medicine , disease , psychology , alternative medicine , cancer , medline , political science , medicine , sociology , knowledge management , social science , law , epistemology , philosophy , pathology , world wide web , computer science
In the era of evidence‐based health care, conferences aimed at disseminating scientific knowledge perform an essential role in shaping policy and research agendas and transforming physician practice. Drawing on observations at two U.S. cancer prevention conferences aimed at knowledge translation, we examine the ways that evidence regarding the relationship between cancer and lifestyle is articulated and enacted. We show that characterizations of the evidence base at the conferences far outstripped what is presently known about the relationship between cancer and lifestyle. The messages presented to conference participants were also personalized and overtly moralistic, with attendees engaged not merely as practitioners but as members of the public at risk for cancer. We conclude that conferences seeking to bring together knowledge “makers” and knowledge “users” play a potentially important role in the production of scientific facts and are worthy of further study as distinct sites of knowledge production. [cancer, lifestyle, conferences, evidence‐based practice, knowledge translation]