ArticleBioSocieties2019
Conceptualising metabolic disorder in Southern Africa: Biology, history and global health.
Article in BioSocieties, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- (Re)considering Discourses of Risk and Responsibility Through the Lens of Healthism: Interpreting the International Response to a Global Health Strategy for Noncommunicable Diseases.Sociology of health & illness · 2026Article
- Risk, lifestyle and non-communicable diseases of poverty.Globalization and health · 2023Article
- Article
- Reframing NCDs? An analysis of current debates.Global health action · 2019Article
- Dietary change, noncommunicable disease and local knowledge: results of a small-scale study of the views of older Malawians.Wellcome open research · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
This paper traces the history of the concept of metabolic disorder in global health and its application to the collection of health metrics relating to the 'epidemic' of non-communicable diseases in Southern Africa, with a focus on Malawi. Although the contemporary science of metabolism points to complexity and contingency, the application of a simplified version of 'metabolic disorder' or 'metabolic syndrome' as the supposed central driver of non-communicable disease in low- and middle-income countries runs the risk of obscuring the ways in which local circumstances and histories interact with global forces to produce epidemiological change. The paper discusses health data collection and its interpretation in Malawi to demonstrate how the use of this concept has led to a narrowing of the category of non-communicable disease and a neglect of the role of infectious disease in producing chronic conditions. Finally, the paper points to alternative approaches which might yield a better understanding of pressing health problems.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.