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Social movements organised around health-related issues have been studied for almost as long as they have existed, yet social movement theory has not yet been applied to these movements. Health social movements (HSMs) are centrally organised around health, and address: (a) access to or provision of health care services; (b) health inequality and inequity based on race, ethnicity, gender, class and/or sexuality; and/or (c) disease, illness experience, disability and contested illness. HSMs can be subdivided into three categories: health access movements seek equitable access to health care and improved provision of health care services; constituencybased health movements address health inequality and health inequity based on race, ethnicity, gender, class and/or sexuality differences; and embodied health movements (EHMs) address disease, disability or illness experience by challenging science on etiology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. These groups address disproportionate outcomes and oversight by the scientific community and/or weak science. This article focuses on embodied health movements, primarily in the US. These are unique in three ways: 1) they introduce the biological body to social movements, especially with regard to the embodied experience of people with the disease; 2) they typically include challenges to existing medical / scientific knowledge and practice; and 3) they often involve activists collaborating with scientists and health professionals in pursuing treatment, prevention, research and expanded funding. This article employs various elements of social movement theory to offer an approach to understanding embodied health movements, and provides a capsule example of one such movement, the environmental breast cancer movement.

Building on a detailed study of the Woburn, Massachusetts, childhood leukemia cluster, this paper examines lay and professional ways of knowing about environmental health risks. Of particular interest are differences between lay and professional groups' definitions of data quality, methods of analysis, traditionally accepted levels of measurement and statistical significance, and relations between scientzj5c method and public policy. This paper conceptualizes the hazard-detection and solution-seeking activities of Lave Canal, Woburn, and other communities as popular epidemiology: the process by which lay persons gather data and direct and marshal the knowledge and resources of experts in order to understand the epidemiology of disease, treat existing and prevent future disease, and remove the responsible environmental contaminants. Based on different needs, goals, and methods, laypeople and professionals have conjicting perspectives on how to investigate and interpret environmental health data. Medical sociology has long been concerned people, yet lay perceptions and experience with differences between lay and professional exhibit great cultural variation. Similarly, lay ways of knowing (Fisher 1986; Roth 1963; explanatory approaches often utilize various Stimson and Webb 1975; Waitzkin 1989). causal models that run counter to scientific Because of their different social backgrounds notions of etiology (Fisher 1986; Freidson and roles in the medical encounter, clients 1970; Kleinman 1980). Medical professionand providers have divergent perspectives on als' work consists of multiple goals, among problem definitions and solutions (Freidson which patient care is only one; patients are 1970). Professionals generally concern themcentrally concerned with getting care (Strauss selves with disease processes, while laypeoet al. 1964). ple focus on the personal experience of The study of these contrasting perspectives illness. For professionals, classes of disorders has centered on clinical interaction and are central, while those who suffer the institutional settings. Some scholars have disorders dwell on the individual level (Zola examined lay-professional differences in oc-1973). From the professional perspective, cupational health (Smith 1981), community symptoms and diseases universally affect all struggles over access and equity in health services (Waitzkin 1983), and genetic screening (Rothman 1986). Yet medical sociology * The research for this paper was supported in has scarcely studied environmental and toxic part by funding from the Wayland Collegium of waste issues. Brown University, the Brown University Small Recently, lay perceptions of environmental Grants Program, and by Biomedical Research health have manifested themselves in a Support grant no. 5-27178 from the National burgeoning community activism. Following Institutes of Health. Robert Gay, Martha Lang, and the landmark Love Canal case (Levine 1982), Beth Parkhurst were very helpful as research the childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn, assistants. Eliz...

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