With Inclusion, Steven Epstein argues that strategies to achieve diversity in medical research mask deeper problems, ones that might require a different approach and different solutions.

Formal concern with this issue, Epstein shows, is a fairly recent phenomenon. Until the mid-1980s, scientists often studied groups of white, middle-aged men—and assumed that conclusions drawn from studying them would apply to the rest of the population. But struggles involving advocacy groups, experts, and Congress led to reforms that forced researchers to diversify the population from which they drew for clinical research. While the prominence of these inclusive practices has offered hope to traditionally underserved groups, Epstein argues that it has drawn attention away from the tremendous inequalities in health that are rooted not in biology but in society.

“Epstein’s use of theory to demonstrate how public policies in the health profession are shaped makes this book relevant for many academic disciplines. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice

“A masterful comprehensive overview of a wide terrain.”—Troy Duster, Biosocieties

“In this fascinating book, Steven Epstein explains how beginning in the 1980s a variety of social movements prevailed in changing inclusion criteria of unrepresented research subjects in clinical trials in the United States. In a relatively short period of time, medical researchers were expected to include more women, racial and ethnic minorities, children, and elderly as research subjects. Epstein pays close attention to the historical precedents of the arguments used in favor and against this change in thinking about what kind of differences matter in biomedical research, its consequences for research, and its far-reaching implications for identity politics. The result is a convincing, widely-accessible, and well-written account of the legal, political, social, and scientific aspects of this change in policy and thinking.”--Stefan Timmermans, author of Postmortem