---
title: "Inclusive content"
description: "The language choices about age, disability, gender, ethnicity, body and skin decide whether a health app is written for everybody or for a default reader."
url: "https://opsinjs.pensievelabs.org/content/inclusive-content"
source: "https://opsinjs.pensievelabs.org/content/inclusive-content.md"
section: "Content & language"
kind: "content"
reviewed: "2026-09-20"
reviewer: "content"
aliases: ["inclusive language", "person first", "identity first", "respectful language"]
---
> Elements written as `` below are opsinjs documentation
> components. Their attributes are the content: the values they render are
> generated from `tokens/*.json` and `registry/catalogue.ts` and are
> published separately at https://opsinjs.pensievelabs.org/r/index.json and under the Reference
> section.
> Nothing is missing from this page. The data simply does not live in
> the prose.
## The rule [#the-rule]
**Write about the person, not the category. Where a category is genuinely
needed, use the words that group uses about itself.**
Inclusive language in a consumer health product is not politeness. It is
accuracy, and it is retention: a reader who is described in words they do not
recognise concludes, correctly, that the product was not built with them in mind,
and a reader who concludes that stops logging.
Six rules.
1. **The person is not the condition.** "A person with diabetes", not "a
diabetic". The condition is something they have; it is not what they are.
2. **Person-first is the default, identity-first is respected where it is
preferred.** Many autistic people and many Deaf people prefer identity-first
language and say so. Follow the community, not the rule, and where a product
knows the reader's preference, use it.
3. **Do not use the language of struggle.** "Suffers from", "battling",
"victim of", "confined to a wheelchair". A wheelchair is a mobility device,
not a confinement, and most people living with a long-term condition are
living with it rather than fighting it.
4. **Do not assume a default body.** Health content routinely assumes an adult,
able-bodied, cisgender, average-weight reader with a partner and a car. Every
one of those assumptions shows up in copy as an unremarked "you".
5. **Separate sex and gender, and only ask for what you use.** Some measurements
and reference ranges are affected by sex assigned at birth; almost no copy is
affected by gender. Asking for one when you need the other is both intrusive
and wrong. The question design is on
[Ask users for sex and gender](../patterns/ask-users-for/sex-and-gender.mdx).
6. **Do not moralise about bodies or behaviour.** Weight, diet, alcohol, smoking
and exercise all attract judgemental vocabulary. State the measurement and the
comparison; never the verdict.
### Beyond words [#beyond-words]
Two things carry inclusion at least as much as vocabulary and are easy to forget
in a content guide:
* **Who is depicted.** Illustration and photography in a health product make a
statement about who it is for, and skin tone in particular is a clinical
question as well as an equity one. Many descriptions of visible symptoms are
written for light skin only. See
[Skin-tone representation](../foundations/imagery/skin-tone-representation.mdx).
* **Whose names and addresses fit.** A form that rejects a name with an
apostrophe, a single-word name, or more than one surname has excluded people
before it has said a word. See
[Ask users for a name](../patterns/ask-users-for/name.mdx).
The specific word choices on this page reflect widely-shared current practice
in UK public-sector and health content design, but they are **our judgement**
and they date. Preferred terms change, and they differ between communities and
between countries. Treat this page as a starting position to be checked with
the people it describes, not as a settled answer, and re-check it at each
review.
## Approved / Rejected [#approved--rejected]
People with diabetes
Diabetics
She has multiple sclerosis.
She suffers from multiple sclerosis.
A wheelchair user
Confined to a wheelchair / wheelchair-bound
Your weight was 84 kg on 14 March.
You are still in the overweight category. Let's work on that!
Some measurements use sex assigned at birth. We ask that separately from how you describe your gender.
Gender: Male / Female (used to calculate your results)
If you have a partner or someone who helps you, you can share this with them.
Share with your husband or wife.
## Patterns [#patterns]
**Referring to a person with a condition**
> `People / a person` with `condition`
**Referring to a group where identity-first is preferred**
> `Identity term` people
Used where that community's stated preference is identity-first, and where the
product has no better information about the individual reader.
**Describing a measurement without a verdict**
> Your `measure` was `value` `unit` on `date`. `Comparison to their own history
> or to a range with an owner`.
**Asking for sex where a measurement needs it**
> Some of your results are worked out differently depending on the sex you were
> assigned at birth. `Question`. `We ask about gender separately`.
**Referring to a supporter**
> `A partner, a family member or someone who helps you`
Never "husband", "wife", "carer" or "family" as the assumed default.
**Referring to the reader's body**
> your `named part`
Plain, anatomical where needed, never euphemistic and never diminutive.
**Describing a visible symptom**
> `What to look for`, which may look `description on lighter skin` or
> `description on darker skin`.
Both, always. A description written for one skin tone is a description that fails
for the readers it does not cover.
## Banned words [#banned-words]
| Banned | Why | Use instead |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| diabetics, asthmatics, epileptics, the disabled | The condition replacing the person. | people with `condition`, disabled people |
| suffers from, battling, fighting, victim of | Frames a life as a struggle the reader may not feel. | has, lives with |
| confined to / bound to a wheelchair | A device that grants mobility described as a prison. | a wheelchair user, uses a wheelchair |
| normal (of people or bodies) | A verdict, and a default reader. | the specific comparison |
| obese, overweight, morbidly obese (in reader-facing copy) | Clinical categories that read as judgements. | the measurement, or the clinical term only where a clinician gave it |
| non-compliant, poorly controlled | Case-note language about a person, in their own app. | the factual description |
| elderly, the aged, seniors | Vague and othering. | older people, or the age range if it matters |
| special needs, differently abled, handicapped | Euphemism, and not the terms most disabled people use. | disabled people, or the specific access need |
| mothers-to-be, expecting mothers | Excludes people who are pregnant and do not use "mother". | pregnant people, or "you" |
| husband, wife, family (as the assumed supporter) | Assumes a household shape. | a partner or someone who helps you |
| ethnic, coloured, non-white | Imprecise, and defines people against a default. | the specific group, in the words used to collect it |
| let's work on that, we'll get you there | Coaching register applied to a body. | delete |
## Related components [#related-components]
* **`Term`** and the [plain-English A to Z](./plain-english-a-z.mdx) are where
a clinical word with a respectful lay equivalent is fixed once.
* **`Field`** covers labels for sex, gender, ethnicity and name; the format a
field accepts is an inclusion decision as much as its wording.
* **`ConsentSheet`** asks permission, and must not assume who the reader shares
with.
* **`CareCard`** carries advice, and advice is where moralising vocabulary
usually enters.
* **`ResultCard`** describes a body; the "no verdict" rule is its content
contract.