On February 28 and March 1, Alka Menon (Yale) and Melanie Jeske (Baylor College of Medicine) led a convening at Yale University titled “Revisiting Biomedicalization: Toward a Technology-Focused Approach.” Under the rubric of medicalization and biomedicalization, substantially developed by Peter Conrad and Adele Clarke, medical sociologists and STS scholars have characterized shifts in the landscape of biomedicine in the late 20th century.

The convening invited participants to further elucidate and contextualize recent developments in medicine and health, in particular the proliferation of technology and technological promise, using empirical cases including health wearables, genetic/genomic tests, diagnostic screening, and AI applications in medicine. Together, scholars worked toward an understanding of the processes and mechanisms through which technology is shaping health and medicine—their constitution, social relations, and power dynamics, taking the recent passing of Conrad and Clarke as an opportune moment to revisit their core insights and to propose an updated agenda for future research on the growing linkages between medicine, science, and technology, against the backdrop of the increasing cultural authority of health.

The workshop brought together an international group of scholars across career stages examining 21st century medical and health technologies, taking a broad view on “technology” from the mundane and familiar to high-tech, state of the art, and on “health,” both inside and outside medicine.