The shift to prevention and health promotion is an example of how policy makers aim to rationalise and organise both health systems and patients' health practices. By applying a perspective from empirical science & technology studies (STS), based on qualitative research methods, the chapters of this book present a view behind the scenes and zoom into the micropolitics of prevention and health promotion. They analyse how patients are framed as being »at risk«, how preventative regimes shape medical practices, and what its practical consequences are in patients' everyday lives. This makes the insights of this book relevant for prevention and health promotion practitioners, public health policy-makers and researchers.

Thomas Mathar (PhD) is Research Manager at LJ Research in Edinburgh (GB). Yvonne J.F.M. Jansen is cultural anthropologist and researcher at The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO Quality of Life, where she focuses on innovations in care and the formation and optimalisation of networks in care. She formerly was appointed as a PhD student at the Institute of Health Policy and Management of the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, where she conducted her PhD research which comprised notions from Science and Technology Studies (STS).

»Der Sammelband erweitert den Blickwinkel auf Forschungspraktiken und aktuelle Formen von Prävention und Gesundheitsforderung. Wer sich aktiv mit Prävention und Gesundheitsförderung beschäftigt, sollte sich unbedingt die Mühe machen und jeden einzelnen Beitrag lesen.« Barbara Wedler, www.socialnet.de, 02.08.2010