‘Ending AIDS’ between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicators
The use of targets and indicators in global health has become ubiquitous within global health and disease elimination programmes. The drive to ‘end AIDS’ has become a global flagship endeavour, including nation-states, donor organisations, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, and act...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Taylor & Francis Group
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Global Public Health |
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| Online Access: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/17441692.2024.2312435 |
| _version_ | 1826950530678652928 |
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| author | Tony Sandset |
| author_facet | Tony Sandset |
| author_sort | Tony Sandset |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The use of targets and indicators in global health has become ubiquitous within global health and disease elimination programmes. The drive to ‘end AIDS’ has become a global flagship endeavour, including nation-states, donor organisations, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, and activists. Almost synonymous with the campaign of ending AIDS is UNAIDS’ 90-90-90 targets. Beyond indicators’ role in neoliberal global health, an essential aspect of indicators and quantitative metrics is their ability to provide a basis for measurements and comparability across time and between different actors and entities. These processes are based on what has been called, commensuration, visual simplification, and serialisation. This article seeks to provide an account of how we can think about indicators in the drive to end AIDS as doing work that is contingent upon commensuration, simplification, and serialisation. The argument is that by attending to issues of commensuration, visual simplification, and serialisation we are better able to see how we risk erasing and foreclosing other forms of conceptualising what the end of AIDS could be. Logics of quantification risks erasing and foreclosing other qualitative aspects of the HIV epidemic as well as obscuring various epistemological tensions inherent in counting towards the end of AIDS. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T04:02:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5d4ebd79c79f466cb530b09bb0f2cb0b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1744-1692 1744-1706 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-02-17T22:32:42Z |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Global Public Health |
| spelling | doaj.art-5d4ebd79c79f466cb530b09bb0f2cb0b2024-12-03T19:27:47ZengTaylor & Francis GroupGlobal Public Health1744-16921744-17062024-12-0119110.1080/17441692.2024.2312435‘Ending AIDS’ between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicatorsTony Sandset0Research Fellow, Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, NorwayThe use of targets and indicators in global health has become ubiquitous within global health and disease elimination programmes. The drive to ‘end AIDS’ has become a global flagship endeavour, including nation-states, donor organisations, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, and activists. Almost synonymous with the campaign of ending AIDS is UNAIDS’ 90-90-90 targets. Beyond indicators’ role in neoliberal global health, an essential aspect of indicators and quantitative metrics is their ability to provide a basis for measurements and comparability across time and between different actors and entities. These processes are based on what has been called, commensuration, visual simplification, and serialisation. This article seeks to provide an account of how we can think about indicators in the drive to end AIDS as doing work that is contingent upon commensuration, simplification, and serialisation. The argument is that by attending to issues of commensuration, visual simplification, and serialisation we are better able to see how we risk erasing and foreclosing other forms of conceptualising what the end of AIDS could be. Logics of quantification risks erasing and foreclosing other qualitative aspects of the HIV epidemic as well as obscuring various epistemological tensions inherent in counting towards the end of AIDS.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/17441692.2024.2312435MetricsHIV/AIDScommensurationepidemiccomparison |
| spellingShingle | Tony Sandset ‘Ending AIDS’ between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicators Global Public Health Metrics HIV/AIDS commensuration epidemic comparison |
| title | ‘Ending AIDS’ between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicators |
| title_full | ‘Ending AIDS’ between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicators |
| title_fullStr | ‘Ending AIDS’ between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicators |
| title_full_unstemmed | ‘Ending AIDS’ between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicators |
| title_short | ‘Ending AIDS’ between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicators |
| title_sort | ending aids between comparison and commensuration and the role of global health indicators |
| topic | Metrics HIV/AIDS commensuration epidemic comparison |
| url | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/17441692.2024.2312435 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tonysandset endingaidsbetweencomparisonandcommensurationandtheroleofglobalhealthindicators |