Focus and Scope

Rhetoric of Health & Medicine (RHM) is a multidisciplinary journal publishing original rhetorical studies (e.g., studies that use theories of rhetoric or persuasion) of health and medical practices involving communication. By rhetorical studies, we mean work that entails more than examining the language or discourse involved in health and medical issues, but that also uses theories of rhetoric to guide inquiry and arrive at nuanced observations about how persuasion works (or could/should work) in discourse and practice. Such studies can combine rhetorical analysis with any number of other humanistic or social scientific methodologies, including critical/cultural analysis, ethnography, qualitative analysis, and quantitative analysis; indeed, RHM seeks to encourage scholarly conversations about health and medicine across fields of inquiry and spheres of practice, in part by publishing inter- and trans-disciplinary research.

Additionally, RHM seeks to contribute to understandings of a broad array of health and medical practices, including but not limited to the history of medicine, patient-provider communication, patient advocacy, patient accessibility, health literacy, public health campaigns, public health policymaking, drug development and marketing, medical training, visual and multimodal communication, medical ethics, environmental health, health and medical technologies, international and intercultural health, health disparities, and eHealth. Articles published in RHM foreground insights about health, illness, healing, and wellness and theoretical and/or methodological contributions to rhetorically studying these phenomena.

In addition to research articles, RHM occasionally publishes dialogues, review essays, and overviews of rhetorical research for health policymakers, practitioners, and publics (see Submission Types for descriptions of these).