JEDIB – Statements on Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

As a leading professional and academic organization in the field of health humanities, the Health Humanities Consortium (HHC) has a responsibility and commitment to advancing the work of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and belonging (JEDIB). Through its interdisciplinary materials and methods, the HHC promotes anti-oppression pedagogy, scholarship, and community practices as they relate to health, illness, disability, dying, wellbeing, and care. 

Our Commitments

Strategic Plan

We are advancing these commitments through the JEDIB committee, which will work with participants across the organization to develop and support equity work in the three areas of the HHC’s mission: pedagogy, research, and practices that focus on intersections among the humanities, arts and social sciences and health, illness, and healthcare.

We recognize that statements are important acknowledgements of injustice and inequity, but that learning and actions are necessary to make effective, sustainable change. Commitment and action must work in concert to ensure equity within the organization and in alliance with communities. Our plan of action includes the following, and will be updated on a regular basis: 

We will develop a regular monitoring plan for this committee to report out what has been done, to gather feedback, and to make recommendations for actions in the next interval.

We will optimize conditions for constituent communities such as students, faculty, practitioners, advocates, and others to do JEDIB work in their own professional spaces.

We will build spaces/mechanisms in HHC to ensure organizational best practices for JEDIB work.

We will develop JEDIB guidance for HHC conference hosts and participants. We will continually develop new priorities with feedback from the community.

Race and Racialization – Our Anti-racism Commitment

HHC recognizes that racism, anti-blackness, and race-based hate impacting BIPOC, Latine, and AAPI people are threats to public and individual health. Systemic health inequities are rooted in a long history of slavery and colonial practices that continue to inform all facets of life including education, economics, how health care is practiced and who can access it, and whose knowledge and experiences regarding health and medicine are counted as legitimate. These upstream factors impact health disparities, lived experience, as well as epistemic injustice. Systemic racism in medicine, healthcare, and population health is entrenched in the knowledge and practices of healthcare and health today. As a leading organization in the Health Humanities, the HHC seeks to advance JEDIB work in relation to racism and anti-blackness, understanding these issues as central to systemic injustice and compounded, intersectional, identity-based oppressions in healthcare and medicine.  The HHC commits to inclusion, equitable access, and participation for all in our every endeavor. To this end, our aim is to identify and dismantle race-based and anti-black discrimination within our organization and to advance representation and priorities of multiple racial identity groups including but not limited to Black, Indigenous, Latine, Asian and Pacific Islander within our membership and beyond. We also commit to advancing scholarship and pedagogies at the intersection of health humanities and studies of systemic racism. 

Sexual Orientation, Sex, Gender Identity, and Reproductive Justice – Our Commitment to Inclusion and Equity

The HHC recognizes Sexual Orientation,  Sex, Gender Identity, and Reproductive Justice as highly legislated and regulated elements of human life and therefore essential to conversations about human rights and health. Sexual Orientation, Sex,  and Gender Identity are distinct facets of identity that intersect along lines of sex-and-gender-based policy. Likewise, Reproductive Justice is a sex, gender, and sexuality-linked area of health care that frequently intersects with human rights and bioethical interests of Sexual Orientation, Sex, and Gender Identity.

These sexuality and gender-related areas of health care therefore represent intersectional components of identity that can function as determinants of health for all races, ages, abilities, and socio-economic statuses. Issues of sexuality, sex,  gender identity, and reproductive health are ubiquitous in the practice of medicine today due to diverse needs that include, but are not limited to, gender-affirming health care, recognition of diverse caregiving partnerships, reproductive justice, respectful use of pronouns, feelings of safety in clinical encounters, representation in data collection, and equitable treatment in legal and insurance policies.

As a leading organization in the Health Humanities, the HHC seeks to advance JEDIB work in relation to Sexual Orientation, Sex, Gender Identity, and Reproductive Justice—understanding sexualities, sex, and gender as central sites of structural injustices and identity-based oppressions in healthcare and medicine. The HHC commits to inclusion, equal access, and participation for all in our every endeavor. To this end, our aim is to identify and dismantle discrimination based on  sexuality, sex, and gender identity within our organization and to advance representation and priorities of diverse issues of sexuality, sex, and gender identity within our membership and beyond. We also commit to advancing scholarship and pedagogies at the intersection of Health Humanities and Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Disability/Ableism  –  Our Anti-ableist Commitment

The HHC recognizes disability rights as human rights. Disabled people represent all races, ages, genders, and socio-economic statuses.  As a leading organization in the Health Humanities, the HHC seeks to advance JEDIB work in relation to disability, understanding disability as a broad and evolving concept that includes overlapping forms of structural injustices and identity-based oppressions in healthcare and medicine.  I would add a line that recognizes disabled people’s experiences as a legitimate form of healthcare knowledge, i.e. “We acknowledge that disabled people routinely encounter epistemic injustice within healthcare systems, and therefore we seek to elevate the voices of disabled people who are experts of their own lives. We recognize lived experience as a legitimate form of health knowledge that informs how disabled people manage their condition and make meaning in their lives.” Feel free to edit this language as you see fit. The HHC commits to inclusion, equal access, and participation for all in our every endeavor. To this end, our aim is to identify and dismantle ableism within our organization and to advance representation and priorities of disabled persons within our membership and beyond. We commit to advancing scholarship and pedagogies at the intersection of health humanities and disability. We also commit to evaluating our organization’s activities–from planning of professional conferences to promotion of employment opportunities–to ensure that we cultivate environments that enable all adults to fully participate in our work without barriers.

Age/Ageism – Our Age Justice Commitment

The HHC recognizes that aging is a part of every human life, and so cultivates an age-friendly positionality in our organization’s activities and in the field of Health Humanities broadly. The HHC also recognizes that age is an important social determinant of health and that ageism, or prejudice and discrimination based on age, intersects with other complex forms of discrimination and oppression such as racism, sexism, transphobia, and/or ableism. 

As a leading organization in the health humanities, the HHC has a commitment to increasing age justice in our discipline through support of the age justice health systems movement. The HHC commits to inclusion, equal access, and participation for all in our every endeavor. To this end, our aim is to identify and dismantle discrimination based on age within our organization and to advance diverse representation and priorities of age-friendly culture within our membership and beyond. We commit to advancing scholarship and pedagogies that recognize the centrality of aging to health, culture, and the arts. We also commit to evaluating our organization’s activities–from planning of professional conferences to promotion of employment opportunities–to ensure that we cultivate environments that enable adults across the lifespan to fully participate in our work without age-related barriers.

Immigrant and Migrant Documentation Status  – Our Commitment

Documentation status impacts wellness and health equity. The HHC recognizes that immigrants, migrants, and asylum seekers have a fundamental right to access healthcare of host countries. Anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia are inextricably tied to racism, sexism, and other forms of identity-based discrimination. We acknowledge that the particular circumstances of certain migrant groups and individual stories are diverse, and warrant complex strategies and solutions. We also recognize that linguistic inequities are a barrier to healthcare access in the U.S. Linguistic inequities and documentation status in the U.S. often overlap. As a leading organization in the health humanities, the HHC has a commitment to advance JEDIB work in terms of immigrant and migrant health inequities. This includes special attention to the way a society’s dominant language might cause certain groups, such as populations with Limited English Proficiency in the U.S., to be subject to assumptions about a culture’s dominant language. To this end, our aim is to identify health inequities experienced by immigrants, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. We seek to address the intermesh between racism and immigrant narratives in order to advance scholarship and pedagogies at the intersection of anti-xenophobia and health humanities.        

Incarceration History – Our Health Justice Commitment

The HHC recognizes the reality of discrimination based on criminal record and the detrimental impact of criminal history on an individual’s use of and access to healthcare. Suboptimal care in correctional healthcare settings, unjust treatment, and medical mistrust are among the many factors contributing to prisoners’ and former prisoners’ increased risks for poor health. The stigmatized identity of persons with a history of incarceration is often intimately tied to other forms of discrimination against the disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities of this vulnerable population. As a leading organization in the health humanities, the HHC commits to advancing JEDIB work in support of incarcerated and formerly-incarcerated persons to to dismantle obstacles to equitable care. To this end, our aim is to promote justice in health and healthcare and within our own organization. We thus commit to advancing scholarship and pedagogies at the intersection of healthcare and criminal justice.

Ethnicity – Our Representation Commitment

The HHC recognizes that institutional measures of ethnic diversity have historically focused on the context of the United States when recognizing historically marginalized groups. Given the global context of colonialism and its legacies, the HHC takes an international perspective in committing to support research topics and members from Indigenous and other oppressed groups. We emphasize the importance of supporting and reducing barriers to participation by underrepresented groups in higher education, including Native Americans, AAPI populations, Black Americans or African Americans, and Hispanic or Latine Americans. We additionally recognize that cultural and physical genocides have impacted many other groups around the world, and that these legacies have intergenerational consequences for material security, health, and wellbeing that often present barriers to full participation in academia. We respect the self-identification of Indigenous and otherwise oppressed groups both within and beyond the conventional categories of underrepresented groups.


Religion and Worldview – Our Commitment

The HHC recognizes the human rights of freedom of thought and expression. Diverse worldviews and religious perspectives are welcome in the HHC without prejudice and with the understanding that respectful dialogue and conversations help clarify paths toward agreement on policy and procedures that serve the interest of all people regardless of race, age, gender, and socio-economic status.

 As a leading organization in the Health Humanities, the HHC seeks to advance JEDIB efforts in relation to religious and other worldviews, understanding that studying these perspectives is central in the work necessary to define and repair structural injustices and identity-based oppressions in healthcare and medicine. The HHC commits to inclusion, equal access, and participation for all in our every endeavor and welcomes diverse voices from religious and other worldviews to help increase understanding and empathy in the work of equitable health care.