November is National Diabetes Month, and November 14th is World Diabetes Day. The purpose of both is to raise awareness about this disease locally and globally. According to the International Diabetes Federation, the theme for World Diabetes Day 2023 is “Empowering Global Health,” and the slogan is “Know your risk, Know your response.”
This slogan is fitting for a new research project undertaken by three librarian researchers from the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center (HSLIC) and the University of Kansas Libraries (KU Libraries). Lisa Acuff and Sally Bowler-Hill from HSLIC and Gwen Geiger Wolfe from KU Libraries are conducting a study of online patient education materials (PEMs) about type 1 diabetes for the use of disempowering language.
The goal of this project is to determine the frequency and context of disempowering terms in PEMs for people with type 1 diabetes and caregivers. This study aims to broaden the scope of research into the use of person-first, inclusive language in PEMs that avoids labels, pejorative terms, and words that undermine patients’ experiences.
To do this, the research team developed an Empowering Language Assessment Tool consisting of a checklist to document the frequency of disempowering words and phrases in PEMs authored by academic, clinical, government, and health-related organizations. After 2 pilot tests, the team used this checklist to assess a sample of 29 publicly available PEMs. Statistical analysis of the results of this assessment is underway. Future work will include a more in-depth qualitative analysis of the sample PEMs. For more information about the project, visit the team’s Open Source Framework site.