This project brings together humanities scholars, communication specialists, medical practitioners, technologists, policy-makers, and other experts and stakeholders to better understand the belief-making process within healthcare in Singapore. The project aims to understand how beliefs and decisions about healthcare are formed, through individual and intersubjective reasoning, and to identify and examine what we have dubbed “epistemic pathologies”: belief-forming practices that diverge from scientific consensus or established norms, and which may lead to poorer health. We are particularly interested in points where trust–between an individual and their healthcare provider; between a community and public institutions; and within online communities–is built, tested, and contested, where health and wellbeing are variously conceived, and where doctors and patients differ in their reasoning and belief-forming practices.

We have chosen to focus our attention on beliefs related to lifestyle risk factors for conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, considering the high prevalence and severity of such conditions. We will examine beliefs about nutrition, exercise, and stress management because these present a nexus of several interrelated themes we are interested in exploring, namely, trust, risk tolerance, and medical literacy. Each of these themes has a significant role in public health and healthcare policy, yet the ways in which they intersect and influence one another are deserving of more study. 

PI: Eric Kerr  
Collaborators: Kathryn Muyskens, Chong Foong-Fong Mary, Gregory Clancey, M. Prakash Hande, Bimlesh Wadhwa, Zhang Weiyu & Jane Lim

Funding Agency: Humanities and Social Sciences Seed Fund, NUS
Project Duration: 20 June 2023 – 20 December 2024