Medicine, Health and Risk offers a lively appraisal of the range of personal and public health issues facing lay people and experts in Britain and other industrialized countries. In particular it focuses on the manner in which people perceive and manage health risks in different settings; the risk acceptability of various medical interventions; the opportunities and constraints on social movements to influence the policy process with regard to public health risks and the way that health risks are socially constructed and regulated.Through case studies and overviews of health risks from medical interventions, occupational practices, social and domestic life and environmental hazards the contributors address a range of questions including the following: What role do social, cultural and institutional processes play in the perception of health risks? To what extent do calculations about the probability of health risks or the acceptability of medical interventions influence the decisions and actions of specific social groups? How are health risks constructed and legitimated by scientists, governments and social movements? How do expert discourses on health risks throw light on key elements of social order and cultural change?Written in a clear and accessible style, Medicine, Health and Risk will appeal to sociologists and policy analysts alike.