Medical Misinformation and Social Harm in Non-Science Based Health Practices: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

Fraudulent, harmful, or at best useless pharmaceutical and therapeutic approaches

developed outside science-based medicine have boomed in recent years, especially due to

the commercialisation of cyberspace. The latter has played a fundamental role in the rise

of false ‘health experts’, and in the creation of filter bubbles and echo chambers that have

contributed to the formation of highly polarised debates on non-science-based health

practices―online as well as offline.

By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this edited book brings together

contributions of international academics and practitioners from criminology, digital

sociology, health psychology, medicine, law, physics, and journalism, where they critically

analyse different types of non-science-based health approaches. With this volume, we aim

to reconcile different scientific understandings of these practices, synthesising a variety

of empirical, theoretical and interpretative approaches, and exploring the challenges,

implications and potential remedies to the spread of dangerous and misleading health

information.

This edited book will offer some food for thought not only to students and academics

in the social sciences, health psychology and medicine among other disciplines, but also

to medical practitioners, science journalists, debunkers, policy makers and the general

public, as they might all benefit from a greater awareness and critical knowledge of the

harms caused by non-scientific health practices.

Anita Lavorgna, PhD, is Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Southampton. She is currently leading research projects on internet-facilitated wildlife trafficking and harmful alternative health practices. Anita’s research pivots around cybercrimes (especially trafficking activities online), serious and organised crime, and the propagation of misleading and fraudulent health information.

Anna Di Ronco, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the Sociology Department of the University of Essex. Her research interests lie in the regulation, representation, and enforcement of incivilities regulations, and individuals’ resistance to social control in the physical and digital space. Her more recent projects look into the local collaborative governance of prostitution in European cities and into the role of social media in supporting (otherwise criminalised or silenced) environmental activism.