Health effects of desert dust storm events in the south-eastern Mediterranean: perceptions and practices of local stakeholders.

BACKGROUND: The south-eastern Mediterranean experiences frequent desert dust storm events (DDS) that have been shown to be associated with adverse health effects. AIMS: This study assessed the perceptions and practices towards DDS of local authorities and stakeholders from 3 countries in the region, Cyprus, Greece and Israel. METHODS: Between October 2017 and April 2018, we administered a semi-structured questionnaire to regulatory authorities involved in public protection from DDS as well as social stakeholders in the 3 countries. The questionnaire addressed their knowledge regarding DDS, perceptions on the relationship between DDS and health effects and relevant actions taken towards public protection. RESULTS: Out of 58 stakeholders contacted, 49 participated in the study (84.5% response rate). Fourteen (28.6%) were regulatory authorities and 35 (71.4%) were social stakeholders. All responders were familiar with DDS but several underestimated the frequency of events while the majority (73%) instinctively reported that elders, children and respiratory patients are susceptible subpopulations. Nevertheless, 71% were unaware of a national policy on DDS, or considered that this was lacking in their country. Although several stakeholders reportedly receive questions from the public regarding DDS effects, only few reply according to a pre-determined action plan. CONCLUSIONS: Regulatory authorities and social stakeholders in Cyprus, Greece and Israel are characterized by good knowledge of DDS and associated health effects, although implementation of pre-determined action plans for public protection is limited. Future efforts should concentrate on increasing awareness among stakeholders and the public and developing national policies, including effective measures to minimize DDS exposure.

BRCA patients in Cuba, Greece and Germany: Comparative perspectives on public health, the state and the partial reproduction of 'neoliberal' subjects.

The relationship among genetic technologies, biosocial identity and patient subjectivity has been the focus of an increasing range of social science literature. Examining mainly European and North American contexts this work has demonstrated the variable configurations of genetic knowledge-practices and the diverse implications for at-risk individuals and populations. This article brings together ethnographic research on genomic medicine, public health and breast cancer in Cuba, Greece and Germany. Although each case study addresses different publics/patients, institutional settings and risk-related practices, they all critically examine 'neoliberal' subjectivity and BRCA patienthood, at the intersection of political rationalities, medical discourses, social conditions and moral codes. In the Cuban case, cultural articulations of inherited and other embodied risks relating to breast cancer are analysed in relation to state provision of 'community genetics', and the shifting dynamics of public health in response to global social processes. The Greek case explores how culturally embedded values, notions of inherited risk and care inform or are re-articulated through institutional practices and ambivalent subject positions, at the meeting point between individualised medicine, religious philanthropy and the particularities of public health. In the German context, diverging patient subjectivities are examined against the background of prevailing social discourses and institutionalised risk management practices that promote proactive individuality. Drawing on deconstructive and feminist analyses, these case studies reveal how normative 'neoliberal' patient subjects are only 'partially reproduced' in situated contexts, neither stable nor homogeneous, as different actors and publics variously articulate, embrace or engage with transnational as well as culturally embedded discourses and health practices.

Between religious philanthropy and individualised medicine: situating inherited breast cancer risk in Greece.

This article explores cultural articulations of inherited breast cancer risk at the meeting-point between religious philanthropy and individualised medicine. Drawing on the particularities of the ethnographic context of Northern Greece, in a rural area among a population facing the uneven distribution of biotechnologies, this analysis intends to show how developments in the field of breast cancer prevention and genetics are interwoven with the challenges and possibilities of the modernisation and secularisation processes. Notions of 'control' or 'protection' are put to work in medical discourse and the religious domain, through a renewed repertoire of pre-existing meaning-systems that highlight often contrasting aspects of collectivity and individuality. For women with high-risk family history of breast cancer, these tensions are reflected in ways they negotiate articulations of their biology, inherited risk and female subjectivity. In effect, the issues of inequality and religious philanthropy bring forth a different terrain for thinking about the biosocial configurations and the image of individualised consumers that genetic knowledge has been said to enforce or endorse.