Over the Past Decade, Person-First Language Was Used in Only About Half of Diabetes-Focused Articles and Fewer than 1% of Obesity Articles, Finds New Study

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Jun 05, 2022

Gelesis (NYSE: GLS), the maker of Plenity for weight management, presented new findings about the role of language in obesity and diabetes scientific literature at the American Diabetes Association’s annual conference. The study sought to understand the extent to which person-first language, or language that identifies people as people as individuals first before their diagnosis, is used in scientific articles. Person-first language (e.g. referring to a person with diabetes as such, instead of “a diabetic”) is generally endorsed by several professional societies including the American Medical Association and American Diabetes Association to help reduce stigmatization. Yet in practice, the data highlighted that person-first language was used in fewer than 1% of obesity articles.