Credibility work in disenfranchising patient-clinician conversations for Mono/Multiracial women of color with autoimmune disease in the U.S

Racial health disparities are exacerbated by interactions with clinicians, and women of color living with autoimmune disease in the U.S. must engage in communication work to receive needed care. Such labor includes credibility work, or strategies to be believed, understood, and taken seriously. Guided by the integrative theory of communication work (ITCW), specifically the credibility work framework, and utilizing phronetic iterative qualitative data analysis (PIQDA), we examine the credibility strategies employed by 150 Black/African American, Hispanic/Latina, Native American/Alaska Native, and Multiracial women in response to disenfranchising clinician interactions, and the resultant double binds. Our findings extend the credibility work typology by identifying three credibility work strategies unique to ethnic-racial identity enactment: contextual racial presentation, code-switching, and marshaling credible witnesses. These findings are further complicated by patients’ Mono- (i.e., one) and Multi- (i.e., two or more) racial identities. We identify two double binds: fracturing identities/fracturing care and shared identities/institutional roles. We extend communication work theorizing in patient-clinician interactions and ethnic-racial identity expression.