Michelle Roberts: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Examining the Social Management of Disability Care in Rural Communities

Abstract While healthcare plays an invaluable role in disability prevention and management, individuals and their families are often left to manage new acquired disability and care needs post-hospitalization. This ethnographic doctoral dissertation project connects the individual challenges experienced by people and families managing acquired disability post-hospitalization in Appalachian KY with broader cultural, political-economic, and biomedical forces. To this end, this project uniquely brings together diverse transdisciplinary approaches from anthropological studies of care, biomedicine, and disability, Appalachian studies, and feminist disability studies. Twelve months of ethnographic research will highlight the lived experiences of disabled peoples and their families in the context of high regional rates of disability and issues of regional representation. The Co-PI will examine both agentive strategies people use to mitigate health inequities and identify ways to support disabled people and their families long-term. This mixed methods project utilizes participant observation, interviews, concept mapping, and photovoice to elicit data about how acquired disability is shaped by cultural, political-economic, and biomedical forces, and what care includes for disabled people, their families, and communities. This research will identify areas of improvement for care for disabled people and their families, insufficient healthcare services resulting from the healthcare system and public policy, strategies used to mitigate health inequities, and the impact of gaps in care on disabled people, their families, and care networks.