The Impact of Healthcare on People with Facial Differences

There is a long history of discrimination against people with facial differences, but little has been done to understand or rectify this bias. With increasing complex reconstructive surgeries yielding better results, there needs to be emphasis on the quality-of-life (QoL) changes that are carried out by undergoing these. Using the WHOQOL-BREF we assessed the increase in QoL after reconstructive surgery and found significant increases in several domains. The stereotype of ‘anomalous is bad’ leads to problems in the wider community but are medical personnel who are more likely than most to encounter people with facial differences, any better than other people. We conducted an IAT on medical personnel to try to establish if there were any mitigating factors for bias but found no factors significantly changing the levels of bias