TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2011//
TI  - From Brittle Bones to Standard Deviations: The Historical Development of Osteoporosis in the Late Twentieth Century
JO  - Science technology and human values
A1  - Santora, Lidia
A1  - Skolbekken, John-arne
SP  - 497
EP  - 521
VL  - 36
IS  - 4
N2  - At the dawn of the twenty-first century, osteoporosis is described as a major public health problem of pandemic proportions, affecting millions of people, and women in particular, around the globe. This situation is frequently described as a result of an aging population, but it is also a consequence of a substantial transformation of the medical understanding and definition of osteoporosis in the latter half of the twentieth century. In this article, the authors trace the transformation of a biologically based understanding of the condition involving a few patients, to the current statistically based definition of osteoporosis from which only a few remain untouched. At the center of this development is the measurement of bone mineral density through densitometrics, combining the use of imaging techniques and statistical epidemiology.<p /> 
LA  - 
SN  - 0162-2439
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0162243910366152
ID  - ref1
ER  -