Campeau, Kari2020-08-252020-08-252020-05https://hdl.handle.net/11299/215126University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.May 2020. Major: Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication. Advisors: Mary Schuster, Lee-Ann Breuch. 1 computer file (PDF); ix, 456 pages.This ethnography examines the ways that individuals and communities come to understand autism, specifically, and health and illness, more broadly, and how these understandings influence medical decision-making. This study, developed in partnership with a Somali women's health center, asks how Somali parents understand autism, use services, and navigate divides between biomedical and other forms of care. To do so, I explore and rhetorically analyze three sites of health-related participation: 1.) public health communication outreach during the 2017 measles outbreak in Minnesota. 2.) the provision of a person-centered pilot grant to Somali families with children with autism, and 3.) alternative healthcare relationships and practices grounded in an understanding of autism as caused by imbalances in the microbiome. I offer three concepts--the situated refusal, bureaucratic literacy, and diagnosis as rhetorical trope--that can theorize health decision-making and can inform policy initiatives toward more accessible medical and social service procedures.enCommunity-Based Participatory ResearchHealth CommunicationHealth PolicyMedical RhetoricVaccinationThesis or Dissertation