Care – Page 6 – Antimicrobials in Society

The complexities of simple technologies

BACKGROUND: Malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are assumed to be simple-to-use and mobile technologies that have the capacity to standardize parasitological diagnosis for malaria across a variety of clinical settings. In order to evaluate these tests, it is important to consider how such assumptions play out in practice, in everyday settings of clinics, health centres, […] Pat Ng

Fast Relief

The experience of time famine in contemporary U.S. culture affects household decisions about self‐care and the use of pharmaceuticals for selfmedication. This article examines the manner in which time demands shape lay interpretations of medicine efficacy and drive increases in medication use for adults as well as children. Medicines, like other time‐saving commodities, appear to […] Pat Ng

The Opacity of Reduction

This article explores the process of consolidating technical and historically contingent ideas about nourishment into seemingly straightforward terms such as vitamins and minerals. I study the adoption of scientific principles of abstraction and reduction as a strategy of nutrition education in three Guatemalan highland sites: an elementary school classroom, a rural clinic, and the obesity […] Pat Ng