ABSTRACT
For some time now, social scientists and other researchers have been tracking the idea of the genetically ‘at-risk’ subject and related technologies, medical practices and biosocialities. While the BRCA-positive woman has become emblematic of this ‘at-risk’ subject, the idea of being ‘at risk’ for breast cancer and the forms this takes are still evolving. The institutionalization of cancer genetic medicine in the US over the past 15 years has occurred within the context of the biopolitical paradigm of ‘health disparities’. In this context, public health researchers have begun to assess how the dissemination of clinical and technological advances in genetics and genomics differentially reach and impact population groups identified by race/ethnic categories and, to some extent, income, education and geographic location (rural/urban). They have also begun to assess what might be done to eliminate the resulting disparities (Armstrong et al. 2012, Fullerton et al. 2012, Hall and Olopade 2006, Ponce 2007, Shields and Crown 2012).
