Abstract
SummaryTransdisciplinary research approaches are being applied to today’s complex health problems, including the climate crisis and widening inequalities. Diverse forms of disciplinary and experiential knowledge are required to understand these challenges and develop workable solutions. We aimed to create an updated model reflective of the strengths and challenges of current transdisciplinary health research that can be a guide for future studies. We searched Medline using terms related to transdisciplinary, health and research. We coded data deductively and inductively using thematic analysis to develop a preliminary model of transdisciplinary research. The model was tested and improved through: (i) a workshop with 27 participants at an international conference in Xiamen, China and (ii) online questionnaire feedback from included study authors. Our revised model recommends the following approach: (i) co-learning, an ongoing phase that recognizes the distributed nature of knowledge generation and learning across partners; (ii) (pre-)development, activities that occur before and during project initiation to establish a shared mission and ways of working; (iii) reflection and refinement to evaluate and improve processes and results, responding to emergent information and priorities as an ongoing phase; (iv) conceptualization to develop goals and the study approach by combining diverse knowledge; (v) investigation to conduct the research; (vi) implementation to use new knowledge to solve societal problems. The model includes linear and cyclical processes that may cycle back to project development. Our new model will support transdisciplinary research teams and their partners by detailing the necessary ingredients to conduct such research and achieve health impact.
Highlights
Improving the health of the public in the 21st century requires actors from many sectors to co-produce knowledge and policy to solve complex global challenges affecting health (Kickbusch and Gleicher, 2012; The Academy of Medical Sciences, 2016; de Leeuw, 2017)
Transdisciplinary research has been compared to community-based participatory research (CBPR) (Berger-Gonzalez et al, 2016) and translational science (Lynch, 2006), and we argue it overlaps with coproduction (Oliver et al, 2019)
The workshop was held at the 16th International Conference on Urban Health in Xiamen, China on 4 November 2019 at a pre-conference session coorganized by the Wellcome Trust and their funded research projects under the Our Planet Our Health (OPOH) programme (Pineo et al, 2020)
Summary
Improving the health of the public in the 21st century requires actors from many sectors to co-produce knowledge and policy to solve complex global challenges affecting health (Kickbusch and Gleicher, 2012; The Academy of Medical Sciences, 2016; de Leeuw, 2017). Rapid urbanization, widening inequalities, climate change and the rising burden of chronic disease are all complex societal problems that affect health, but will not be solved by health researchers or practitioners working alone. These challenges are intractable partly due to their complexity. Transdisciplinary research is seen as the most integrative form of crossdisciplinary research (Czajkowski et al, 2016) that was first created to solve complex problems in environmental sustainability (Berger-Gonzalez et al, 2016) and is used in environment and health research, such as EcoHealth approaches (Buse et al, 2018)
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