TY - JOUR
T1 - Paradigmatic approaches to studying environment and human health
T2 - (Forgotten) implications for interdisciplinary research
AU - Phoenix, Cassandra
AU - Osborne, Nicholas J.
AU - Redshaw, Clare
AU - Moran, Rebecca
AU - Stahl-Timmins, Will
AU - Depledge, Michael H.
AU - Fleming, Lora E.
AU - Wheeler, Benedict W.
N1 - Funding Information:
The European Centre for Environment and Human Health ( www.ecehh.org ) (part of the University of Exeter Medical School) is supported by investment from the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund Convergence Programme for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly .
PY - 2013/1
Y1 - 2013/1
N2 - Interdisciplinary research is increasingly promoted in a wide range of fields, especially so in the study of relationships between the environment and human health. However, many projects and research teams struggle to address exactly how researchers from a multitude of disciplinary and methodological backgrounds can best work together to maximize the value of this approach to research. In this paper, we briefly review the role of interdisciplinary research, and emphasise that it is not only our discipline and methods, but our research paradigms, that shape the way that we work. We summarise three key research paradigms - positivism, postpositivism and interpretivism - with an example of how each might approach a given environment-health research issue. In turn, we argue that understanding the paradigm from which each researcher operates is fundamental to enabling and optimizing the integration of research disciplines, now argued by many to be necessary for our understanding of the complexities of the interconnections between human health and our environment as well as their impacts in the policy arena. We recognise that a comprehensive interrogation of research approaches and philosophies would require far greater length than is available in a journal paper. However, our intention is to instigate debate, recognition, and appreciation of the different worlds inhabited by the multitude of researchers involved in this rapidly expanding field.
AB - Interdisciplinary research is increasingly promoted in a wide range of fields, especially so in the study of relationships between the environment and human health. However, many projects and research teams struggle to address exactly how researchers from a multitude of disciplinary and methodological backgrounds can best work together to maximize the value of this approach to research. In this paper, we briefly review the role of interdisciplinary research, and emphasise that it is not only our discipline and methods, but our research paradigms, that shape the way that we work. We summarise three key research paradigms - positivism, postpositivism and interpretivism - with an example of how each might approach a given environment-health research issue. In turn, we argue that understanding the paradigm from which each researcher operates is fundamental to enabling and optimizing the integration of research disciplines, now argued by many to be necessary for our understanding of the complexities of the interconnections between human health and our environment as well as their impacts in the policy arena. We recognise that a comprehensive interrogation of research approaches and philosophies would require far greater length than is available in a journal paper. However, our intention is to instigate debate, recognition, and appreciation of the different worlds inhabited by the multitude of researchers involved in this rapidly expanding field.
KW - Epistemology
KW - Generalizbility
KW - Interdisciplinary
KW - Interpretivism
KW - Methodology
KW - Ontology
KW - Philosophy of science
KW - Positivistism
KW - Postpositivism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84871785509&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84871785509&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.envsci.2012.10.015
DO - 10.1016/j.envsci.2012.10.015
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:84871785509
VL - 25
SP - 218
EP - 228
JO - Environmental Science and Policy
JF - Environmental Science and Policy
SN - 1462-9011
ER -