Princeton University, Office of Population Research, 228 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2013 Aug;90:49-55. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.04.031. Epub 2013 May 6.
As medical reports over the last decade indicate that food allergies among children are on the rise, peanut allergies in particular have become a topic of intense social debate. While peanut allergies are potentially fatal, they affect very few children at the population level. Yet, peanut allergies are characterized in medical and popular literature as a rising "epidemic," and myriad and broad-based social responses have emerged to address peanut allergy risk in public spaces. This analysis compares medical literature to other textual sources, including media reports, legislation, and advocacy between 1980 and 2010 in order to examine how peanut allergies transformed from a rare medical malady into a contemporary public health problem. I argue that the peanut allergy epidemic was co-constructed through interactions between experts, publics, biomedical categories, and institutions, while social reactions to the putative epidemic expanded the sphere of surveillance and awareness of peanut allergy risk. The characterization of the peanut allergy problem as an epidemic was shaped by mobility across social sites, with both discursive and material effects.
过去十年的医学报告表明，儿童食物过敏的发病率呈上升趋势，尤其是花生过敏已成为社会热议的话题。虽然花生过敏有潜在致命风险，但在人群水平上，只有极少数儿童受到影响。然而，医学和大众文献将花生过敏描述为一种日益严重的“流行”，并出现了无数广泛的社会反应来解决公共场所的花生过敏风险。本分析将医学文献与其他文本来源（包括 1980 年至 2010 年间的媒体报道、立法和宣传）进行比较，以考察花生过敏如何从罕见的医疗疾病转变为当代公共卫生问题。我认为，花生过敏的流行是通过专家、公众、生物医学类别和机构之间的相互作用共同构建的，而对所谓的流行的社会反应则扩大了对花生过敏风险的监测和意识范围。将花生过敏问题描述为一种流行，是通过跨越社会领域的交流而形成的，具有话语和物质的双重影响。
