ABSTRACT

This chapter explores conceptual frameworks for thinking about use and non-use, drawing on the case of pharmaceuticals and specifically prescribed statins for cardiovascular disease prevention. It presents medical sociology concerning 'resistance' to pharmaceuticals into conversation with the more explicit discussions of non-use within science and technology studies (STS), and aim to contribute to the study of unwanted innovations by suggesting an analytic shift from a focus on the non-user as an identity to non-use as a practice. It then explores whether the concept of 'resistance', developed in medical sociology, can help support or develop the non-use framework proposed by Wyatt. The chapter looks at the data to investigate, then turns to a closer comparison of the ways in which 'resistance' is understood in different literatures. The health policy has moved towards systematic screening for cardiovascular risk in primary care and mandates that those at relatively high risk of cardiovascular disease.