The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics)

An interdisciplinary overview of theory, history, and leading research in the field With a joint linguistic and medical perspective, The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare explores innovative approaches for improving clinical education, clinician-patient communication, assessment, and mass communication. Contributions by a diverse panel of experts address a wide range of key topics, including language concordance in clinical care, medical interpreting, the role of language as a social determinant of health, reaching linguistically diverse audiences during public health crises, assessing clinician language skills, and more. Organized into five parts, the Handbook covers the theory, history, and context of linguistics, language interpretation and translation, language concordance, medical language education pedagogy, and mass communication of health information with linguistically diverse populations. Throughout the text, detailed chapters present solutions and strategies with the potential to improve the health and healthcare of linguistically diverse populations worldwide. In an increasingly multilingual, global society, language has become a critical area of interest for advancing public health and healthcare. The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare: Helps professionals integrate language-appropriate communication in healthcare settings Addresses clinician-patient communication, assessment, research, and mass public health communication Offers key theoretical insights that inform the intersection of language, public health, and healthcare Highlights how various approaches in the field of linguistics have enriched public health and healthcare practices The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare is essential reading for undergraduate, postgraduate, and professional students of applied linguistics, health communication, and medicine. It is also an invaluable reference for language educators, clinicians, medical educators, linguists, health policy experts, and researchers. The first reference work of its kind, The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare offers an interdisciplinary overview of language and linguistics in application to all fields of medicine, health communications, clinician practice, and patient outcomes. Taking a broad view of the field, this volume offers analyses of modern and historical developments in healthcare and public health from perspectives based in all subfields of linguistics, including applied linguistics, anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics, language policy, and translation studies. The volume is divided into five parts, each of which takes on a major research area in the modern field. Beginning with a consideration of the history and grounding theory of this research area, chapters in the first section approach major questions in the field from the perspectives of different branches of linguistics. The second section dives into questions surrounding the roles of interpreters in medical settings and the challenges of providing adequate communication resources for doctors and patients, including users of sign language. The third section considers questions in language concordance, the broad area of study which is concerned with the practice of matching patients with healthcare practitioners who speak their languages. The fourth section shifts focus to the practitioners and their teachers through chapters that consider education and assessment as well as second language acquisition as a part of medical education and professional development. Finally, the fifth section takes a close look at questions in the subfield of language and media with chapters that consider healthcare communication strategies and the roles of social media and entertainment in disseminating information a particularly timely set of chapters which offer some critical insights based on all that researchers have learned as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. This volume is an ideal resource for students and researchers working in the international fields of language and medicine as well as clinicians pursuing professional development and medical educators. It is certain to become the definitive reference work for this burgeoning area of research as it will offer a review of the leading thinking on key topics following the COVID-19 pandemic and questions which have lately come to the fore in disparities in global access to care.