There are so many ways in which health coverage can be more sensitive and aware of a disabled audience—and we are part of the audience of health coverage, despite the implicit assumption of many articles that journalists are writing for a nondisabled audience. Language, while important and indicative of a writer’s attitude toward the subject, is only one element of disability-aware health coverage, and I recommend, as I do to everyone who publishes about disability, the National Center for Disability and Journalism’s style guide, which covers many aspects of disability typically not mentioned in AP or in-house style guides.
The sad reality is that much of our medical system, which by rights should be one of the most supportive environments to disabled people, is instead one of the most hostile and stigmatizing. This extends to medical research as well, where implicit bias against disability and disabled people impact everything from study design to topics chosen for study in the first place, as this study illustrates all too well—more on that below.