Paper long abstract:

The quantification of bodily functions and lifestyle variables into risk factors has given rise to a range of new objects and in the digital age. For instance, risk scores - algorithms that predict risks figures based on epidemiological studies - have become key elements of "evidence-based prevention". This paper sets out to examine the temporalities that are folded into the socio-technical ensemble of such tools: Each time risk scores are calculated and used, the computation mobilizes the collective disease experience recorded for a population into a prognosis at the individual level. What kind of convoluted temporalities are at work in risk scores? How do they perform, as risk scores circulate through society? Drawing on empirical material from large-scale epidemiological studies, I examine how these particular data foldings (Serres 2005) relate body and time in specific ways. This approach is inspired by various strands in STS, database multiples (Mol 2001), memory practices (Bowker 2009), calculative devices (Callon 1998) as well as modes of anticipation (Adams et al. 2012). By focusing on the specifics of digital practices and the performativity of algorithms (Mackenzie 2005), I trace how principles of accounting co-shape health matters. Focusing on practices with quantitative data, this paper will offer an itinerary through datascapes, from epidemiological data collecting and biobanking, data aggregation and modeling, to the social life of risk figures. In this way this paper contributes to rethinking conceptually how we approach and study infrastructures of quantification in the health sciences.