Introduction

This volume, Inclusive Healthcare Communication in Action: Healthcare, Language, and Inclusivity, Volume 2, serves both as a continuation and an expansion of the conversations begun in Discourses of Inclusive and Exclusionary Health Communication: Healthcare, Language, and Inclusivity, Volume 1. The first volume examined inclusionary and exclusionary constructions of health and illness in the media and institutional discourses, and first-person accounts of health, illness, and recovery that can inform inclusionary practices in health and healthcare. Building upon that foundation, this second volume shifts its attention to recent advances in the integration of health discourse research and health communication practices that hold the potential to address inequalities in rapidly changing global contexts. As in Volume 1, we adopt the definition of health inequalities as the systematic, avoidable, and unfair differences in health across the population and between different groups in society (NICE, n.d.; McCartney et al., 2019, p. 28). This definition carries two central implications: (1) health inequalities may manifest in different forms or disadvantage individuals in diverse ways, and (2) they should be examined through an intersectional lens. The contexts explored herein range from the integration of conceptual frameworks, health promotion campaigns, and machine learning algorithms in healthcare discourse research to health education for youths. The contributors explore an action-oriented perspective, foregrounding approaches that challenge exclusionary practices and promote inclusive communication across diverse communities. It is our hope that the contributions will stimulate further dialogue, inform health education and promotion strategies, and inspire further empirical research into the critical role of language in addressing health inequalities.