Epistemic Injustice in Plain Sight: Evidence from Medical Data

Recent debates on epistemic injustice in healthcare stress both the need for clearer criteria and measurement (Nielsen et al. 2025) and the importance of methodological pluralism (Færge et al. 2026). I argue that, in some domains, epistemic injustice can already be inferred from existing medical data, without waiting for new standardized metrics. Focusing on women’s diagnostic delay, I argue that well-documented patterns - such as delayed diagnosis, symptom misattribution, and prolonged patient intervals - provide evidence of underlying epistemic injustice. The analysis distinguishes three dimensions - epistemic ignorance in knowledge production, testimonial injustice in clinical encounters, and hermeneutical injustice in patients’ interpretive resources - and presents empirical indicators that allow these phenomena to be systematically identified and quantified. I argue that their convergence shows that epistemic injustice is already visible in medical track records and patients’ diagnostic journeys. Although improved measurement remains important, the absence of standardized metrics should not prevent well-justified claims when the available evidence is already sufficiently robust.