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Dr Alessia Costa
Senior social scientist
Engagement and Society
“I believe social science is about making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. I’m interested in exploring how new diagnostic technologies are reshaping the ways in which we think about ourselves, our body, illness and health. I want to contribute to our understanding of how these questions translate in real-life for patients and families, so that their views and experiences can drive the development and use of new technologies.”
Alessia is a social anthropologist with an interest in multi-disciplinary research and expertise in qualitative methods, including ethnographic and socio-material approaches, interviews and participatory research. She has a strong interest in medical science and technologies, especially regarding patient experience, clinical practice and the social construction of scientific knowledge.
My publications
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- 2023
- 2022
Detecting value(s): Digital biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease and the valuation of new diagnostic technologies.
Sociology of health & illness 2023
This article explores how the meanings and values of diagnosis are being reconfigured at the interface between technological innovation and imaginaries of precision medicine. From genome sequencing to biological and digital 'markers' of disease, technological innovation occupies an increasingly central space in the way we imagine future health and illness. These imaginaries are usually centred on the promise of faster, more precise and personalised diagnosis, and the associated hope that if detected early enough disease can be effectively treated and prevented. Underpinning and reproduced through these narratives of the future is a re-conceptualisation of diagnostic processes and categories around the anticipation of future risk, as noted by recent theoretical developments in the sociology of diagnosis and related disciplines. Adding to this literature, in this article we explore what makes these emerging diagnostic arrangements valuable, to whom and how. Drawing on interviews with experts involved in the development of digital biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease, we trace how multiple and at times conflicting applications of the tools, and the value(s) attached to them, are coproduced. We thus ask what possibilities are pursued, or foreclosed, through the work of imagining the future of diagnosis.
What Difference Can Public Engagement in Genome Editing Make, and for Whom?
The American journal of bioethics : AJOB 2023;23;7;58-60
Return of genomic results does not motivate intent to participate in research for all: Perspectives across 22 countries.
Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics 2022;24;5;1120-1129
The aim of this study was to determine how attitudes toward the return of genomic research results vary internationally.