Healthcare is necessarily an epistemic practice. It is a domain in which knowledge is constantly evaluated, contested, and negotiated by patients, health professionals, and members of the public. Our project focuses on long-term, non-communicable health conditions, now the leading causes of mortality in Singapore. These chronic illnesses require long-term management strategies, involving an active and on-going collaboration between patient, health providers and other caregivers, and are strongly influenced by lifestyle factors, such as nutrition and exercise. This project will apply a social epistemological lens to map and explore how health-related epistemic habits are formed, contested, and revised in the context of chronic illness. What we can term the ‘standard’ account of health knowledge focuses on the role of information in belief formation and the function of the health professional expert as information provider. The dominant discourse focuses on individual self-management and assumes the centrality of ‘rational’ belief formation and action in response to relevant information. This standard picture of knowledge has been challenged by the ‘social turn’ in epistemology. Addressing chronic illnesses requires sustained changes in lifestyle through the development and upkeep of habitual practices, not just the formation of a new belief. These habits are shaped by a person’s social environment consisting of intimate personal relationships, everyday social circles, unbounded online engagements, as well as the wider cultural, spiritual, religious, ethical, political and economic context. 

PI & Co-PI(s): Michael Charles Dunn & Eric Kerr 
Collaborators: Angus Dawson, Laurie Goldsmith, Soo Jung Hong, Shuh Shing Lee, Victor Loh,
Daryl Shen Ooi, Dujeepa Samarasekera, Seow Ling Hui Adeline & Shou Yiyun

Funding Agency:  Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (MOE-T2EP40225-0002)
Project Duration: 30 September 2026 – 29 September 2029