Ethical inquiry and(health)technology assessment:the social shaping perspective

摘要

This focus section of Poiesis & Praxis is the result of two sessions focusing on technology assessment(TA)and health technology assessment(HTA),which were organised during the 18th annual meeting of the International Society for Technology Assessment in Health Care in Berlin on 9- 12 June 2002.The titles of the sessions were "HTA and general TA ohances for mutual learning" and "Integrating ethical inquiry in HTA",chaired by Armin Grunwald and Wija Oortwijn,respectively.Technology assessment was introduced in the early 1960s and described as "a comprehensive form of policy research that examines short-and long-term consequences of the application of technology".Evidence of problems regarding health technology stimulated the field of HTA in the beginning of the 1970s.Broadly conceived,HTA should include ethical aspects of technologies,but until now there is a tendency to focus on the cost-effectiveness of health technologies only.