EMPIRICAL STUDY OF CHANGE IN PUBLIC GENETIC DISCOURSE

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Appropriate health policies for integrating genetic medicine into social and medical practice require an accurate understanding of social norms with regard to genetics and human reproduction, health, and identity. Extant critical studies have argued that increased understanding of genetics and application of genetic medicine might be associated with increases in social norms of perfectionism, biological essentialism, and discrimination. This study employs a critical content analytic approach to ascertain the degree of perfectionist, essentialist and discriminatory social norms associated with the rise in public discourse about genetic medicine. It employs a coding protocol with demonstrated intercoder reliability. Using this protocol coders will be able to produce a quantitative survey of a structured random sample of congressional discourse, newspapers, popular magazines, and television coverage from 1950 through 1995. The resulting comparative and proportional description of changes in public norms regarding human reproduction, health, and identity will enable more accurate forecasting of future uptake of genetic medicine and will help to highlight appropriate precautions and opportunities.