Ableism & Healthcare Now is an independent platform that public health writer and data analyst Dielle Lundberg created to share her research and other scholarly work about how structural ableism shapes healthcare and public health. Dielle shares a few research briefs each year on this platform, which supplement the one to two peer-reviewed articles she publishes annually.
Mission:
This project seeks to publish research and analysis about structural ableism and health to push back on the large amount of health research every year that upholds ableism within healthcare and public health. Beyond that, the project seeks to shift the values and priorities of policymakers toward health policies that center the perspectives and needs of disabled people.
Ableism is deeply ingrained in society and within public health and healthcare. It is often internalized, even by disabled people, and requires ongoing attention to unlearn and divest from. This project invites everyone on a journey to further unlearn and divest from ableism, including me. At the same time, it also seeks to hold policymakers responsible for ableism in public health and healthcare, as these are the actors who continue to uphold ableist policies, practices, and norms despite ongoing pushback and feedback from disabled people.
Disability justice originates and lives in the community, and out-of-the-system advocacy, dreaming, and other work are crucial for the liberation of disabled people. As someone producing scholarship critical of the U.S. health system, Dielle works to hold a tension between documenting harm in the current health system and focusing on alternatives. Her own view is that we need to invest more resources in addressing the social and structural causes of poor health and chronic disease and in community-based alternatives to the mental health system. Additionally, many people live with health conditions that require advanced medical treatments and assistive technologies, which she does not believe can realistically shift to community settings. Instead, she believes the U.S. needs a universal government-funded and coordinated health care system.
Structural ableism affects the health of disabled people in a myriad of ways that differ across communities. This project is not an effort to examine all of the pathways by which structural ableism influences health. This project is also the work of one scholar, with one perspective on structural ableism, and does not reflect the full spectrum of views that disabled, neurodivergent, and mad people may hold. Dielle has written about her positonality and background on Medium, along with in an essay series entitled “Cripping Clover: Essays on Lucid Tinn Brains, Demedicalization of Disability, and Irish-American and Celtic Heritage“.
Publishing Approach:
Ableism & Healthcare Now’s publishing approach is a deliberate attempt to circumvent the barriers that disabled scholars often face in research and academic publishing. Research briefs are open-access and free to read. This project is independently written and receives no external funding at this time. In addition to publishing here on this website, all Ableism & Healthcare Now research and analysis is published on a preprint sever in a PDF format so it is citable with a permanent link and discoverable via research databases.
Research and analysis on Ableism & Healthcare Now is not peer-reviewed, unless it is clearly identified as such. In the case of peer-review, the project follows an open science model where reviewers are identified and reviews are published. Because preprint severs support uploading new versions of articles and archiving prior versions, articles published on Ableism & Healthcare Now (unlike traditional academic journals) may be further revised after initial publication to incorporate feedback and expand on issues that emerge in public or scholarly debate.
Contact:
If you’d like to get in-touch with Dielle Lundberg or you encounter any accessibility issues when accessing the research briefs published on this website, please reach out via email at contact@ableismnow.org.
