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Language and Health – Ethical and Policy Issues (with special focus on measurement and measurability)

September 6-7, 2018

, Montreal ()

Call for Papers – 2018 Research Conference 

For almost a decade, Health Canada has been funding important and innovative research on linguistic issues in healthcare provision, through HCALM (Health Care Access for Linguistic Minorities) Network – an interdisciplinary and interinstitutional community of researchers. The project comprises the research capacity of the larger Training and Retention of Health Professionals Project (TRHP), based at the Institute for Health and Social Policy at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ.

The HCALM network now invites submissions for its 2018 annual conference on the topic of ‘language and health – ethical and policy issues’. Language and health are interrelated in myriad ways, ranging from issues of physical and mental healthcare provision in multilingual societies, to health literacy and communication among patients, practitioners and policymakers, and to discourses of health and wellbeing. In accordance with the strong interdisciplinary nature of HCALM’s community of researchers, the conference welcomes submissions which bring together theories, frameworks, concepts and methods from a broad range of disciplines in the medical sciences, social sciences and the humanities. Similarly, it invites submissions that address the significant ethical and policy issues at the interface of public health and language (including sign language) policy, broadly interpreted.  

Plenary speakers:

• Mark Fettes (Education, Simon Fraser University)
• Eran Tal (Philosophy, McGill)

One of the two days of the conference will be dedicated specifically to the topic of measurement and measurability in the context of language and health. The topic is broadly construed, and eligible papers may consider it from a variety of theoretical, conceptual and methodological perspectives.

Relevant papers may explore, for example, the utility and limits of quantitative and qualitative approaches to healthcare; objective and subjective measurement of well-being; global health and traditional knowledge; and policy implications of health measurement. The list is suggestive rather than exhaustive, and the convenors welcome papers that explore any pertinent issues relating to the topic.

The primary language of the conference is English, but English-French and English-ASL interpretation will be provided if and as required.

Abstracts (app. 300 words) should be sent to Daniel Weinstock and Yael Peled (hcalm-network.ihsp [at] mcgill.ca). The deadline for submissions is April 8, 2018.