Realization of the rights of people with epilepsy in the welfare state

Research project “The realization of rights of people with epilepsy in the context of welfare state”  is an interdisciplinary project which focuses on the access to justice and wellbeing, discrimination and stigma experienced by people with epilepsy.

The purpose of the research project is to find out what kind of legal problems and legal needs people with epilepsy have, what kind of obstacles they have in accessing their rights and how the system could be developed. The research is related to the research tradition of Access to Justice. The theoretical tradition emphasizes that legal studies should not focus on formal rights but on whether people actually have access to their rights.

The study method is qualitative and written stories as well as interviews will be collected. In the collected writings and interviews, the main focus is on what kind of legal problems people with epilepsy have, how the problems are tried to be solved, what kind of obstacles there have been in accessing justice, and what kind of status they perceive their position in society to be in this respect. In particular, we ask people to tell us about problems related to social and health services, discrimination and stigmatization, as well as working life and education.

Univesity of Eastern Finland’s Committee on Research Ethics  has evaluated and approved this study. For more information, please contact professor Kaijus Ervasti.

kaijus.ervasti@uef.fi