Performance as Evidence in Chronic Disease: Measuring health status and treatment outcomes through the quantification of performance

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper uses the materials of the author's ongoing postdoctoral research funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) and undertaken at McGill University (Quebec, Canada) Social Studies of Medicine Department.

Notes

¹My use of the term ‘actor’ draws upon actor-network theory and refers to elements, human or non-human, which operate only through their interconnectedness with other elements in a network.

²With his concept of GTP, Jon McKenzie (2001) invites those working in performance studies to go beyond their established focus on performing arts and liminal practices and to look into other research paradigms that, despite not being in close alliance with performance studies, have also developed models, theories and concepts of performance within the same time period that performance studies became institutionalized.

³See, for instance, Simon Williams's (1998) discussion of the pursuit of health in contemporary Western cultures as ‘moral performance’. Even though Williams does not write from a performance studies perspective, he implicitly weaves tenets of performance theory with sociology of health throughout his essay.

⁴See, for instance, the term ‘performance qualifier’ in International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (WHO 2001: 19) or the use of ‘performance standards’ in evidence-based medicine (Timmermans and Berg 2003: 25).

⁵Sullivan (2003: 1,598).

⁶Clinical trials are research studies that either compare already existing interventions (for example, drug, technology, procedure) or test an experimental one on humans in a controlled environment in order to determine its safety and efficacy.

⁷Data published by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2014) indicate that national health expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 5 per cent in 1960 to 8.9 per cent in 1980.