Misunderstanding vaccine hesitancy: A case study in epistemic injustice

Epistemic injustice in psychiatry

It has been argued that those who suffer from medical conditions are more vulnerable to epistemic injustice (a harm done to a person in their capacity as an epistemic subject) than healthy people. This editorial claims that people with mental disorders are even more vulnerable to epistemic injustice than those with somatic illnesses. Two kinds of contributory factors are outlined, global and sp...

Epistemic Injustice and Illness

This article analyses the phenomenon of epistemic injustice within contemporary healthcare. We begin by detailing the persistent complaints patients make about their testimonial frustration and hermeneutical marginalization, and the negative impact this has on their care. We offer an epistemic analysis of this problem using Miranda Fricker's account of epistemic injustice. We detail two types o...

Vaccine Hesitancy

A Vaccine hesitancy reflects concerns about the decision to vaccinate oneself or one’s children. There is a broad range of factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy, including the compulsory nature of vaccines, their coincidental temporal relationships to adverse health outcomes, unfamiliarity with vaccine-preventable diseases, and lack of trust in corporations and public health agencies. Altho...

The Nature of Epistemic Injustice

Injustice in Healthcare: A Navajo Case Study

Significant health inequalities exist between the Navajo tribe and the US population as a whole and are worsening over time. I argue that while these health issues are concerning, there are also larger systemic issues (i.e., the Navajo’s historic and contemporary marginalization, the removal of traditional medicine from formal healthcare settings, etc.) that continually reproduce these health i...