Paper short abstract:

Genetic epidemiology is making headway in China. Analysing the way genetic epidemiological research in China Medical City is presented by its leaders using ‘strategic scaling’, I show how socio-historical context of epidemiology and state concerns with biosecurity delimit the way scientists argue their case.

Paper long abstract:

With the development of biobanks, genetic and environmental measurements are routinely translated in terms of public health risk, rendering all human behavior as potentially determined by genetic and epigenetic processes and environmental factors. Not only does it continue and renew the medicalization of society, it also provides authorities with tools for monitoring public health and maintaining biosecurity.

In European societies, discourses on bioethics and risk have increasingly led individuals to monitor their health conditions. In China, however, where investment in epidemiology and biobanks has grown, unequal access to healthcare and health education has raised questions about how in Chinese society epidemiological information is collected, and which communities benefit from its activities.

Analyzing the way genetic epidemiological research in China Medical City is presented by its leaders reveals how socio-historical context of epidemiology and state concerns with biosecurity delimit the way scientists argue their case. Although it is known that nation-state policy plays an important role in scientific discourse in China, I show how scientists use what I call strategic scaling to zoom in on particular relations between communities and research. Defining their research in terms of units, standards, and perspectives pre-modeled by both state developments and the international science community, these relations define the stakes, costs and benefits of their research.