The Work of Workplace Disclosure: Invisible Chronic Conditions and Opportunities for Design

Health disclosure at work is complicated for people with invisible chronic conditions. Due to the lack of visible symptoms, invisible conditions affect the work life of people in ways that are not obvious to others. This study examines how people disclose and conceal their conditions in the workplace and opens the design space for this topic. In the first phase, we analyzed posts on two subreddit forums, r/migraine and r/fibromyalgia, and found a range of strategies that individuals use to disclose or conceal their conditions. In the second phase, we created five technological design concepts based on these strategies that were shown to eight people with migraines or fibromyalgia in semi-structured interviews. Based on these phases, we contribute understandings of disclosure and concealment of invisible conditions in the workplace for future research, such as potential areas for intervention ranging from individual to societal level efforts, as well as the potential and limitations of relying on empathy from others.