Ableism, Ageism, and Other Biases in Healthcare: The Impact on Young Adult Patients

At its third roundtable in a series focused on young adults with chronic conditions, Generation Patient convened a multi-stakeholder learning community to discuss dismissal, ableist, and ageist misconceptions of young adult patients in health care.

Co-authored by young adults with chronic conditions and published in Health Care Transitions, the roundtable proceedings outline perspectives of patients and health care professionals on the consequences of ableism, ageism, and other types of bias faced by young adult patients. Such consequences include stereotypes and dismissal, diagnostic delays and misdiagnosis, and power imbalances between patients and clinicians. The authors conclude by listing approaches to mitigate consequences of bias in health care contexts for young adult patients.