Unpacking vulnerability: towards language that advances understanding and resolution of social inequities in public health
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Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer Nature
Abstract
Our attention was drawn to an important recent paper published in the journal Critical Public Health, which discusses
the use (and misuse) of the word “vulnerable” in public health
research and practice (Katz, Hardy, Firestone, Lofters, &
Morton-Ninomiya, 2019). We commend these authors for
contributing a timely paper that calls attention to the role of
language in what we regard as the longstanding challenge of
downstream drift in public health research (e.g., Baum &
Fisher, 2014; Baum & Sanders, 2011; Carey, Malbon,
Crammond, Pescud, & Baker, 2016).
The paper caught our eye, in part, because the authors went
about their task by identifying and analyzing recent articles published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health (CJPH), as well
as the American Journal of Public Health, that had used the word
“vulnerable” in a way that was “vaguely, inconsistently or undefined at least once.” T
Description
Keywords
Public health, Vulnerability, Social inequities, Language
Citation
Zarowsky, C. et al. (2020). Unpacking vulnerability: towards language that advances understanding and resolution of social inequities in public health[Décomposer la vulnérabilité : vers un langage qui favorise la compréhension et la résolution des iniquités sociales en santé publique]. Canadian Journal of Public Health ,111(1)