Critical Realism for Health and Illness Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscilla Alderson
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The World ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
University College London ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Research To Policy

Critical realism, a toolkit of practical ideas, helps researchers to extend, clarify and validate their work. Critical realism resolves problems and contradictions between quantitative factual research and qualitative interpretive approaches. It draws on their strengths, overcomes their limitations, and helps to connect research to policy and practice. To meet growing demand from researchers and students, the book shows how versatile critical realism can be in research across the life course and around the world, from small studies to large trials. Healthcare, health promotion and heath inequalities are all addressed. This book is based on the course at University College London, first taught by Roy Bhaskar the founder of critical realism, and later convened by the author. The aim is to help readers who are new to critical realism, or are in the fairly early stages, with their research across the whole range of health and illness disciplines and professions. Chapters consider relations between structure and agency, facts and values, and between visible evidence and mainly unseen powerful influences on health and illness. Using clear definitions, diagrams and examples, this book enables readers to understand and apply valuable critical realist concepts to health and illness research.

The point is to change it: connecting research to policy and practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 167-180
Author(s):  
Priscilla Alderson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Medical Science ◽  
Community Mental Health Services ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Neoliberal Reform ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
Research To Policy

The final chapter begins with epidemics in Africa and Asia, then considers challenges to health and illness research, and ways forward. Disconnections in theory, policy and practice are contrasted with the connections that need to be made in theory and practice if pandemics, climate change and other global threats to health are to be contained. Contradictory social science theories all need to be connected and combined, like medical science, into a larger coherent critical realist framework that goes beyond describing and measuring. The detailed example is about contested understandings of mental distress within neoliberal reform of community mental health services. Eight commitments for useful health research are followed by methods for Utopian research about future change.

Structure and agency: making connections

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-94
Author(s):  
Priscilla Alderson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Traumatic Brain Injury ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Realist Evaluation ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Injury Rehabilitation ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Health And Illness

This chapter continues to summarise different theories and methods in mainstream health and illness research in order to compare them to critical realism and show what it might add. Positivist, interpretive and postmodern approaches to human agency within structures are considered. There are also sections on: six features of critical realism; structure, agency and culture; four types of social structures; a comparison of realist evaluation and critical realism theories of structure and agency; the structure-agency dialectic, and Archer’s theory of internal conversations. The detailed examples of applying critical realist concepts are of prison leavers with mental health problems, and nurses working on traumatic brain injury rehabilitation. Throughout, the chapter critically considers problems posed for health researchers, to see how critical realist research theories of structure and agency can serve their work.

Critical Realism for Health and Illness Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscilla Alderson
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
The Life Course

Critical realism helps researchers to extend and clarify their analyses. This original text draws on international examples of health and illness research across the life course, from small studies to large trials, to show how versatile critical realism can be in validating research and connecting it to policy and practice.

Critical Realism

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-72
Author(s):  
Dominik Giese ◽  
Jonathan Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
The Real ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Ontological Question ◽  
The World

This chapter evaluates critical realism, a term which refers to a philosophy of science connected to the broader approach of scientific realism. In contrast to other philosophies of science, such as positivism and post-positivism, critical realism presents an alternative view on the questions of what is ‘real’ and how one can generate scientific knowledge of the ‘real’. How one answers these questions has implications for how one studies science and society. The critical realist answer starts by prioritizing the ontological question over the epistemological one, by asking: What must the world be like for science to be possible? Critical realism holds the key ontological belief of scientific realism that there is a reality which exists independent of our knowledge and experience of it. Critical realists posit that reality is more complex, and made up of more than the directly observable. More specifically, critical realism understands reality as ‘stratified’ and composed of three ontological domains: the empirical, the actual, and the real. Here lies the basis for causation.

scholarly journals Where have we been and where are we going? The state of contemporary health promotion

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (6) ◽  
pp. 621-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Woodall ◽  
Charlotte Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Conceptual Foundation ◽  
Current State ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Health Policy And Practice

This paper seeks to critically discuss the current state of health promotion, arguing that ambiguity remains in its conceptual foundation, practice and education, which is contributing to its decline in several parts of the world. Drawing on relevant literature, the paper re-examines the status of health promotion as a specialist discipline in its own right and suggests that the reaffirmation of this status can move health promotion from the margins to the mainstream of public health policy and practice. The paper briefly rehearses some common conceptualisations of health promotion before suggesting four tensions which, if resolved, could offer greater conceptual clarity and galvanise the contribution of the discipline in addressing individual and community health across the globe.

scholarly journals Family-Centered Health Promotion: Perspectives for Engaging Families and Achieving Better Health Outcomes

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 004695802092353
Author(s):  
Michael D. Barnes ◽  
Carl L Hanson ◽  
Len B. Novilla ◽  
Brianna M. Magnusson ◽  
AliceAnn C. Crandall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Disease Prevention ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Public Health Practice ◽  
Family Health ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Family Unit ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Life Course

Communities and populations are comprised of individuals and families who together affect the health of the community. The family unit is an unparalleled player for maintaining health and preventing disease for public health because members may support and nurture one another through life stages. Preliminary research confirms that family-oriented health promotion and disease prevention are promising strategies because the family unit is both a resource and a priority group needing preventative and curative services across the life course. Although there are growing numbers of successful efforts, family health systems are generally underutilized in health promotion practice. This lack of utilization in policy and practice have hampered the collection of robust evidence for family health. This paper purports that families are important actors in public health. Yet, since no one pattern for healthy families is known, public health practitioners can consider six principle-based approaches to legitimately and respectfully advance the families’ innate potential for health promotion and disease prevention. Each perspective aims to foster higher capacity for family health systems to function appropriately in public health practice. Health promotion practitioners and researchers can explore family health perspectives with the potential for systems policy and practice adjustments in public health.

scholarly journals A Critical Realist Approach on Autism: Ontological and Epistemological Implications for Knowledge Production in Autism Research

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianthi Kourti
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Autism Research ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Behavioural Characteristics ◽  
The One ◽  
Relations Of Power

The ontological status of autism has been a subject of considerable debate and philosophical approaches of it have been recent and sparse. On the one hand, from its conception, autism has been historically heavily located in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience, which often assume access to an “objective,” neutral and infallible reality that is external to the research process and is based on the autistic person’s biology and behavioural characteristics, which can be scientifically observed and studied. On the other, proponents of the neurodiversity movement argue against medicalised and pathologising approaches to autism and toward approaches that consider social constructions of autism and relations of power. The Critical Realist philosophy can help reconcile the two positions. Critical Realism conceptualises objectivity as a statement about an object, rather than a neutral and infallible reality. Consequently, Critical Realism suggests that access to reality can only occur through fallible theories. It also suggests that effective theorising goes beyond appearances and phenomena and may even contradict them, which can help challenge dominant behaviourist approaches on autism. I then explore how the tenets of Critical Realism can help strengthen autistic-led theories of autism, the arguments they make, as well as how they support the importance of community autism knowledge. Finally, I present how Critical Realism’s approach to knowledge itself as well as the process of knowledge creation can strengthen autistic theorising, autistic participation in autism research and autistic emancipation. In the last part of the article, I explore how the concepts of Critical Realism apply to autistic sociability. I start with the debate between structure and agency, how Critical Realism reconciles this debate and the implications for autistic emancipation and autism research. I then present Critical Realism’s process of critique and explanation, how they connect to human emancipation and how they can lead to impactful change in autism research by requiring clear links from research to practice, enhancing practices with strong theoretical underpinnings and thus aiding the aims of emancipatory autism research.

scholarly journals Ontology, Epistemology, Strategy and Method in Educational Research. A Critical Realist Approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (14) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Scott
Keyword(s):  
Educational Research ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The World ◽  
Analyse Data ◽  
Meta Theory

This article focuses on the development of a meta-theory for the use and application of qualitative strategies and methods. This meta-theory is sometimes referred to as critical realism, though it is important to acknowledge that there are in existence a number of rival theories that are described as critical realist. The suggestion being made here is that methods and strategies used by researchers to collect and analyse data in the world cannot be a-epistemic, but in every case are underpinned by ontological and epistemological frameworks. In particular, </span><span>the issue of causality is central to any framework that is adopted. Since researchers cannot avoid these philosophical issues then it is obligatory for them to base their methods, strategies and modus operandi on a meta-theory which is both more rational and, in addition, fully comprehensive.

scholarly journals ThinkPiece: A Critical Realist’s Reflections on Coupling the Hydrological and Social Systems during a Global Crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Critical Realism ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Water Structure ◽  
Water Systems ◽  
Personal Agency ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Realist Approach ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Critical Realist

Hydro-sociology is a recent field of study that aims to couple the human and water systems. It appears to be a response to dualistic thinking within hydrology and sociology that is also reflected in theoretical debates about structure and agency. Reflections about how specific rivers have ignited personal agency and define some of our political and economic structures are shared. Critical realists like Margaret Archer argue that reflexivity is a mediating tool between structure and agency. But what mediating tool is/can be used to mediate between the hydrological and sociological fields and related thinking? This think piece is a reflection on how a critical realist approach to structure and agency may deepen the connection and understanding of hydro-sociology. Keywords: critical realism, hydro-sociology, duality, water, structure and agency

Introduction to the Forum

2012 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-189
Author(s):  
OLIVER KESSLER
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Scientific Debates ◽  
Intellectual Movement

In the last couple of years, Critical Realism has established itself as an alone-standing intellectual movement in International Relations (IR). It not only seeks to challenge the idea of the middle ground on which most of the more moderate versions of constructivist thought base their convictions, but it also seeks to provide own answers to basic scientific problems around the relationship between facts and values, causation and causality, or agents and structure. If one would want to characterise Critical Realist positions, one has to point to their attempted resurrection of ontology. Taking inspiration, in particular, from Bhaskar's Possibility of Naturalism and subsequent works, different strands of Critical Realism are tied together in their conviction that epistemology has had too much influence on scientific debates ever since Kant changed the structure of philosophical reasoning by asking how objects were determined by concepts rather than the other way round. The prevalent focus on epistemological questions is not only biased and asks the wrong questions, but it starts from false premises in the first place, as Wight and Patomäki once put it: every theory of knowledge must also logically presuppose a theory of what the world is like (ontology) for knowledge (epistemology) to be possible.

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