Semi-automated socio-anthropologic analysis of the medical discourse on rheumatoid arthritis: Potential impact on public health

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 17; no. 12; p. e0279632
• Main Authors: Nardini, Christine, Candelise, Lucia, Turrini, Mauro, Addimanda, Olga
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 29.12.2022; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Anthropology; Anti-inflammatory agents; Arthritis; Arthritis, Rheumatoid - therapy; Autoimmune diseases; Automation; Biomedical research; Biotechnology; Care and treatment; Chronic diseases; Communication in medicine; Diffusion rate; Discourse analysis; Disease; Drugs; Ethnology; Humans; Inflammation; Interdisciplinary research; Life Sciences; Medical publishing; Medical research; Medical Subject Headings-MeSH; Medicine and Health Sciences; Medicine, Experimental; Methods; Nervous system; Pandemics; Pharmacology; Physical Sciences; Public Health; Queries; Research and Analysis Methods; Rheumatoid arthritis; Santé publique et épidémiologie; Social aspects; Sustainability; Sustainable Development; Technology application; United Nations; Wound healing; Italy
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279632

The debilitating effects of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and the accompanying chronic inflammation represent a significant obstacle for the sustainability of our development, with efforts spreading worldwide to counteract the diffusion of NCDs, as per the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3). In fact, despite efforts of varied intensity in numerous directions (from innovations in biotechnology to lifestyle modifications), the incidence of NCDs remains pandemic. The present work wants to contribute to addressing this major concern, with a specific focus on the fragmentation of medical approaches, via an interdisciplinary analysis of the medical discourse, i.e. the heterogenous reporting that biomedical scientific literature uses to describe the anti-inflammatory therapeutic landscape in NCDs. The aim is to better capture the roots of this compartmentalization and the power relations existing among three segregated pharmacological, experimental and unstandardized biomedical approaches to ultimately empower collaboration beyond medical specialties and possibly tap into a more ample and effective reservoir of integrated therapeutic opportunities. Using rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as an exemplar disease, twenty-eight articles were manually translated into a nine-dimensional categorical variable of medical socio-anthropological relevance, relating in particular (but not only) to legitimacy, temporality and spatialization. This digitalized picture (9 x 28 table) of the medical discourse was further analyzed by simple automated learning approaches to identify differences and highlight commonalities among the biomedical categories. Interpretation of these results provides original insights, including suggestions to: empower scientific communication between unstandardized approaches and basic biology; promote the repurposing of non-pharmacological therapies to enhance robustness of experimental approaches; and align the spatial representation of diseases and therapies in pharmacology to effectively embrace the systemic approach promoted by modern personalized and preventive medicines. We hope this original work can expand and foster interdisciplinarity among public health stakeholders, ultimately contributing to the achievement of SDG3.