title: Personal health technologies, micropolitics and resistance: A new materialist analysis.
abstract: Personal health technologies are near-body devices or applications designed for use by a single individual, principally outside healthcare facilities. They enable users to monitor physiological processes or body activity, are frequently communication-enabled and sometimes also intervene therapeutically. This article explores a range of personal health technologies, from blood pressure or blood glucose monitors purchased in pharmacies and fitness monitors such as Fitbit and Nike+ Fuelband to drug pumps and implantable medical devices. It applies a new materialist analysis, first reverse engineering a range of personal health technologies to explore their micropolitics and then forward engineering personal health technologies to meet, variously, public health, corporate, patient and resisting-citizen agendas. This article concludes with a critical discussion of personal health technologies and the possibilities of designing devices and apps that might foster subversive micropolitics and encourage collective and resisting 'citizen health'.
authors.affiliation: The University of Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Nick J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Fox
mesh_terms: D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D003132:Commerce; D004864:Equipment and Supplies; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D063731:Mobile Applications / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000379:methods*; D011057:Politics
keywords: lifestyle; technology in health care; theory