Research seminar: "Health, Inequity, and Public Discourse: Rethinking Mental Health and Healthcare Access"
Health, Inequity, and Public Discourse:
Rethinking Mental Health and Healthcare Access
A collaborative research seminar, hosted by the HIV/AIDS Unit at the University of the Western Cape in partnership with the Departments of Educational Studies and Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology at Ghent University.
DATE: Wednesday, 19 November 2025 TIME: 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM VENUE: University of the Western Cape, School of Government Building, Room 1E and 1G Join us for a thought-provoking exploration of two pressing challenges in contemporary healthcare and society. Dr. Ama Kissi will present research revealing how racial bias continues to influence healthcare systems. Following this, Prof. Kris Rutten will examine how media narratives and public discourse construct our collective understanding of mental health—shaping everything from stigma to help-seeking behaviours. Together, these presentations illuminate the powerful, often invisible forces that determine who receives care, how conditions are understood, and whose voices are heard in health conversations.
Programme
12:00 - 12:45 Dr. Ama Kissi
Healthcare Inequities
Presentation (20 min) | Q&A and Discussion (20 min)12:45 - 1:30 Prof. Dr. Kris Rutten
A Rhetorical Study of Mediatized Debates on Mental Health
Presentation (20 min) | Q&A and Discussion (20 min)Speakers
Dr. Ama Kissi
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology
Clinical Psychologist, Ghent University
Dr. Ama Kissi is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology at Ghent University, where she works within the HEALinG Research Group. She is also a practicing Clinical Psychologist. Her research focuses on racial discrimination in healthcare, examining the role of healthcare providers' racial evaluations and enacted behaviours in clinical practice, and investigating the impact of racialized stereotypes on diagnostic processes and decisions. She is also part of the ROAM-BE project, which focuses on the experiences of people from sub-Saharan Africa living in Belgium.
Dr. Kissi completed her PhD at Ghent University in 2019 with a dissertation titled "The Rule-Based Insensitivity Effect in the Context of Pain." She has received several prestigious awards, including the EFIC-Grünenthal award (2025) and the Ghanaians in Belgium Excellency Award (2022). She is a member of the editorial advisory board of the European Journal of Pain.
During the seminar, Dr. Kissi will talk about her work on healthcare inequities. Her presentation will draw on her extensive research examining racial disparities in healthcare settings, including her recent publications on racialized disparities in healthcare among Belgian youth, racialized bias in paediatric care, and the experiences of discrimination and racism in healthcare by patients with migration backgrounds. This body of research provides critical insights into how racial bias operates in healthcare settings and its impact on clinical assessment and treatment.
Prof. Dr. Kris Rutten
Associate Professor, Head of the Research Group Culture & Education
Department of Educational Studies, Ghent University
Prof. Kris Rutten is Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Studies where he leads the research group Culture & Education. His expertise is on the rhetoric of cultural literacy, the pedagogical dimensions of culture and the ethnographic turn in the arts. He is the president of the Kenneth Burke Society and the Flemish Reading Association (Iedereen Leest). He is an associate editor of the academic journal Critical Arts.
During the seminar, Prof. Rutten will present an on-going research project on the public understandings of mental health. Mental health issues are a worldwide concern and also highly prevalent in Flanders. In addition to high-performance mental health care, this requires appropriate help-seeking behaviour by the general public which includes recognition, management and prevention of mental health issues as well as reducing stigma towards mental health patients. Because public understandings of mental health influence whether or not and in what ways people take action, a profound understanding of the public debate about mental health is required. The images, stories and discourses about mental health that are circulated in different types of media are highly influential in shaping public understandings of mental health. Therefore, the general aim of this project is to conduct a rhetorical analysis of mediatized debates about mental health and to explore how the rhetorical framing of mental health in these debates is related to help-seeking and stigma.
The seminar is open to staff and students.
Refreshments will be provided.
To join Zoom online: https://uwc.zoom.us/j/98047513758 To register for the seminar: https://tinyurl.com/29ck4t69 For in person attendance: Kindly RSVP via https://forms.gle/HnjxMRLcDg5Zmk2M6 by 13 November for catering purposes. For more information, please contact:
HIV/AIDS Unit, University of the Western Cape email: hivaids@uwc.ac.za
