CfP: Healthcare, language and inclusivity

Over the past years, questions of Diversity, Equality and Inclusivity (EDI) in healthcare have been highlighted in a number of national and international health crises, not least the COVID-19 pandemic. The envisaged volume, which will be submitted to the new Routledge series on Studies in Language, Health and Culture, looks at both in- and exclusionary practises in healthcare, the media and public discourse surrounding it, as well as affordances of online health communication globally, focusing especially on contexts outside of the mainstream English-dominant healthcare contexts, including (but not restricted to):

- Who gets a diagnosis: are some social groups more likely to have difficulties getting a diagnosis— e.g., more likely to be questioned or not to be taken seriously?
- What gets diagnosed: are particular conditions more likely to be difficult to get diagnosed—e.g., fibromyalgia, endometriosis…?
- Who gets listened to in consultation: are some social groups more likely to be disregarded in consultation—e.g., are people assumed to have cognitive difficulties included in doctor-patient interaction and decisions, or do practitioners mainly address and arrange service users’ needs with the carers?
- Health literacy assumptions and health literacy programmes in traditional healthcare and in relation to eHealth, e.g., how are demographic factors such as age, socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds addressed in relation to health literacy? Which actions are taken to promote health literacy among under-represented and vulnerable populations?
- Public involvement in healthcare research: how does research in healthcare and health communication account for the voices of under-represented groups and those affected by the conditions studied?
- Raising awareness campaigns—examples of health communication campaigns that have contributed to breaking taboos and developing counter-narratives to conspiracy theories and ideologies that impede equitable healthcare provision.
- Illness and recovery narratives in healthcare research—use of first-person narratives to give voice to those affected by physical and mental health conditions, affordances and perils (e.g., co-option).

Contributions are invited from a wide range of linguistic studies, including quantitatively and/or qualitatively oriented discourse analysis, lexicology, pragmatics, and multimodal studies. Abstracts between 150-200 words should be submitted by 10 August 2023 to the email address, a.musolff@uea.ac.uk.

Kayo Kondo (Durham University)
Andreas Musolff (University of East Anglia)
Sara Vilar-Lluch (University of Nottingham)
Taochen Zhou (University of Nottingham)

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis