The politics of Type 2 Diabetes management in Denmark: Self-care and Risk Calculation

Health care policies in Denmark and throughout Europe have from 1970 and onwards increasingly prioritized health preventive interventions to govern lifestyle choices for chronically ill patients, such as Type 2 diabetes. In... [ view full abstract ]

Health care policies in Denmark and throughout Europe have from 1970 and onwards increasingly prioritized health preventive interventions to govern lifestyle choices for chronically ill patients, such as Type 2 diabetes. In Denmark a structural reform has introduced local social authorities into the health sector and thereby made local municipalities responsible for health prevention. This paper argues that the structural reform represents a boost in health preventive interventions in Danish health care, and especially the Type 2 diabetes care, and enhanced the shift towards the optimization of health of all citizens and the politicization of the lifestyle of individuals. Based on document analysis of governmental health programs and Disease Management Programs (DMP) this paper examines what rationales and forms of knowledge are informing the governing of Type 2 diabetes patients. In particular, this paper shows how governmental health programs and DMPs have portrayed and problematized Type 2 diabetes before, during and after the structural reform as a threat to society which is to be governed by interventions targeting the self care of individuals and populations at risk. As the paper suggests the inclusion of local governmental authorities in to the preventive health care has blurred the lines between the “healthy” and the “ill” population making the lifestyle choices and practices of individuals a political problem.