IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/2001913365-368_7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The privatization of risk

Author

Listed:
  • Rockhill, B.

Abstract

The privatization, or individualization, of risk factor knowledge has been largely responsible for a rising fide of criticism of epidemiology. The current debate seems polarized into 2 sides, those who support and those who attack "risk factor" epidemiology. This commentary aims to reinvigorate some of Geoffrey Rose's central arguments and show that this debate may miss a key point: a risk factor is a probabilistic concept that applies to an aggregate of individuals, not to a specific individual. Risk factor knowledge compels those in public health to seek actions that shift population distributions of these factors and, to do so, to understand their social, economic, and political determinants. The author links Rose's qualitative distinction between the causes of cases and the causes of incidence to an examination of the conceptual and quantitative limits of "individual risk" estimation. The attempt to predict individuals' futures on the basis of risk factor profile is especially prominent now with breast cancer. The author suggests reasons why a policy promoting private decision making about risk, while likely ineffective from a population standpoint, is viewed as the only feasible primary prevention option against this disease.

Suggested Citation

  • Rockhill, B., 2001. "The privatization of risk," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(3), pages 365-368.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:2001:91:3:365-368_7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karatekin, Canan & Mason, Susan M. & Riegelman, Amy & Bakker, Caitlin & Hunt, Shanda & Gresham, Bria & Corcoran, Frederique & Barnes, Andrew, 2022. "Adverse childhood experiences: A scoping review of measures and methods," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    2. Zhang, J. & Tong, L. & Lamberson, P.J. & Durazo-Arvizu, R.A. & Luke, A. & Shoham, D.A., 2015. "Leveraging social influence to address overweight and obesity using agent-based models: The role of adolescent social networks," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 203-213.
    3. Christine Holmberg & Erika A. Waters & Katie Whitehouse & Mary Daly & Worta McCaskill-Stevens, 2015. "My Lived Experiences Are More Important Than Your Probabilities," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 35(8), pages 1010-1022, November.
    4. David C. Bellinger, 2003. "Perspectives on Incorporating Human Neurobehavioral End Points in Risk Assessments," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(1), pages 163-174, February.
    5. Sobo, Elisa J., 2005. "Parents' perceptions of pediatric day surgery risks: unforeseeable complications, or avoidable mistakes?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(10), pages 2341-2350, May.
    6. K.S. Khroutski, 2002. "Epistemology of Civilised Man Diseases," E-LOGOS, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2002(1).
    7. David C. Bellinger, 2002. "Perspectives on Incorporating Human Neurobehavioral End Points in Risk Assessments," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(3), pages 487-498, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:2001:91:3:365-368_7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.