This research project explores the role of inclusive language in Australian cervical screening policy by examining what the implications of shift in health promotion language are, with particular reference to priority populations, including those currently identified as being under-screened.
Aims of the pilot study are:
To establish an evidence base through this pilot study that warrants further examination across the full domain of ‘women’s health’, e.g., reproduction, menstruation, menopause, etc.
Centre for Social Research in Health
A key domain where shifts in language to make ‘women’s health’ more inclusive are currently being negotiated is within the Australian National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP), which is longstanding secondary prevention program. These negotiations comes with a renewed emphasis on ensuring that the language used is inclusive and that excludes a binary-informed orientation to gendered difference. This is evident in the move from using the term ‘women’ exclusively to current phrasing of ‘women and people with a cervix’. Changes to policy and practice around the language used to discuss and promote cervical screening represents potential case studies through which to explore the wider implications of the inclusive language and the reorientation of women’s health.
Funding was provided by ADA’s seed funding scheme awarded in 2022.
Drysdale K, Creagh NS, Nightingale C, Whop LJ, Kelly-Hanku A (2025). “Beyond words: operationalizing inclusive language in Australian cervical screening health promotion policy”, Health Promotion International, Volume 40, Issue 3, June 2025 [online 21 May] daaf058,
Drysdale, K., Creagh, NS, Nightingale, C., Whop LJ, and Kelly-Hanku, A., (2024). “Inclusive language in health policy - a timely case (study) of cervical screening in Australia”, Health Sociology Review, Volume 33 (3), p 325-341. [online 5 June].
Research team
Along with:
