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In the US, a growing number of organizations and industries are seeking to affirm their commitment to and efforts around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as recent events have increased attention to social inequities. As health care organizations are considering new ways to incorporate DEI initiatives within their workforce, the anticipated result of these efforts is a reduction in health inequities that have plagued our country for centuries. Unfortunately, there are few frameworks to guide these efforts because few successfully link organizational DEI initiatives with health equity outcomes. The purpose of this chapter is to review existing scholarship and evidence using an organizational lens to examine how health care organizations can advance DEI initiatives in the pursuit of reducing or eliminating health inequities. First, this chapter defines important terms of DEI and health equity in health care. Next, we describe the methods for our narrative review. We propose a model for understanding health care organizational activity and its impact on health inequities based in organizational learning that includes four interrelated parts: intention, action, outcomes, and learning. We summarize the existing scholarship in each of these areas and provide recommendations for enhancing future research. Across the body of knowledge in these areas, disciplinary and other silos may be the biggest barrier to knowledge creation and knowledge transfer. Moving forward, scholars and practitioners should seek to collaborate further in their respective efforts to achieve health equity by creating formalized initiatives with linkages between practice and research communities.

While research on digital dangers has been growing, studies on their respective solutions and justice responses have not kept pace. The agathokakological nature of technology demands that we pay attention to not only harms associated with interconnectivity, but also the potential for technology to counter offenses and “do good.” This chapter discusses technology as both a weapon and a shield when it comes to violence against women and girls in public spaces and private places. First, we review the complex and varied manifestations of technological gender violence, ranging from the use of technology to exploit, harass, stalk, and otherwise harm women and girls in communal spaces, to offenses that occur behind closed doors. Second, we discuss justice-related responses, underscoring how women and girls have “flipped the script” when their needs are not met. By developing innovative ways to respond to the wrongs committed against them and creating alternate systems that offer a voice, victims/survivors have repurposed technology to redress harms and unite in solidarity with others in an ongoing quest for justice.

Recent years have seen the development of new approaches to the study of gender and sexuality in childhood, with attention given to socio-historical, cultural and political contexts. This chapter aims to contribute towards a limited field of research on queer childhood and youth in Central Asia by considering how narratives of queer childhood in Kazakhstan are culturally produced. This chapter draws on the material from in-depth interviews of 11 queer people living in Kazakhstan, focussing on their narratives of childhood. The study exposes the effect of silence about non-heteronormative identities in Kazakhstan on queer children. Narratives of bullying and managing school violence are explored along with narratives of queer childhood within the families of origin. Lastly, the chapter foregrounds instances of agency and resilience, considering how queer children manage to steer themselves away from being an ‘impossible subject’ and contest dominant societal attitudes and discourses.

Based on an extensive literature review, this chapter outlines key developments in global health and research during the last century with focus on the emergence of violence and child maltreatment as international public health priorities. Violence has been known to humans for millennia, but only in the late 1990s was it recognised as a global public health issue. Every year, an estimated 1 billion children are exposed to trauma, loss, abuse and neglect. Child maltreatment takes a social and economic toll on countries. Research initiated in 1985 found child maltreatment to be associated with increased disease, disability and premature death in adult survivors. The global availability of data on child maltreatment is, however, sporadic with low validity and reliability. Few global experts have consulted and involved the survivors of child maltreatment, as the experts by experience, in their attempts to provide a more comprehensive picture of reality. Youth and adult survivors of child maltreatment are often traumatised by the experience, and it is important to use trauma-informed approaches to prevent re-traumatisation. Participatory and inclusive research on child maltreatment is only in its infancy. There is a need for more inclusive research, designed by survivors for survivors, hereby strengthening local capacity building and informing policymakers from the bottom up. This chapter reviews lessons learnt and provides recommendations for how to enhance the participation and inclusion of the experts by experience in research on child maltreatment.

Women who use drugs are one of the most maligned, misunderstood and maltreated groups in contemporary culture and society. Despite this, little public outcry nor empathy is given. As a woman who uses drugs, the author examines what lies behind this neglect. A post-structuralist approach is taken in order to examine the categories of meaning assigned to bodies under the twin ruling structures of prohibition and patriarchy. This is done with the intent to better understand and challenge the process of (masculinist) knowledge-making and practices surrounding women who use drugs that treats us as mere objects of knowledge. Furthermore, this chapter draws from feminist auto-ethnography, as the author uses own personal experiences as a woman who uses drugs, a feminist and a drug user advocate as a lens through which to give form to this analysis. Ultimately, the author argue that it is time to let go of outdated, unjust and prejudicial images by challenging established norms and practices, test and apply new theories and negotiate different identities outside of those currently available to women who use drugs. In undertaking this piece, the author hopes that the critical reflections contained within this chapter can ‘cause some trouble’, by being politically useful for the growing movement surrounding women who use drugs.