Luisa Bandeira Coelho
Doctoral Student
My research is about Deaf experiences in the Health and well-being field and civil society.
Social Sciences
ME141
I am a doctoral candidate in Social Work at Södertörn University, Sweden, where I am also affiliated with the Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS). My research explores how deaf communities navigate health and social care. I look at how communication barriers shape their experiences, how social care professionals skilled in sign language collaborate with deaf clients to promote equitable access to services, and how deaf communities advocate collectively for their rights.
I am particularly interested in what professional and community collaborations look like in practice, what makes it work and what gets in the way. In my research, I explore deaf-centered qualitative research methods, combined with ethnographic strategies. I conduct fieldwork in International Sign and English, exploring deaf spaces and networks.
Key research interests
- Accessibility in health and social care for deaf communities that use sign language
- Collaborations between social care professionals and deaf communities to improve health equity
- Deaf-centered research methods in qualitative research
- Social Work with Deaf People (SWDP), including interprofessional collaboration and Community-based support.
Recent publication
Coelho, L. B. (2025). Navigating International Sign in Glocal Deaf Networks: Developing Deaf-centred Methodologies in Transnational Deaf Community Spaces. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 14(2), 171–197. Retrieved from https://cjds.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/cjds/article/view/1251 External link.
More on my work
The researcher is not participating in any projects at this moment.