Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Mar 29;17(7):2303. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17072303.
Increasingly, funders (i.e., national, public funders, such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation in the U.S.) and scholars agree that single disciplines are ill equipped to study the pressing social, health, and environmental problems we face alone, particularly environmental exposures, increasing health disparities, and climate change. To better understand these pressing social problems, funders and scholars have advocated for transdisciplinary approaches in order to harness the analytical power of diverse and multiple disciplines to tackle these problems and improve our understanding. However, few studies look into how to conduct such research. To this end, this article provides a review of transdisciplinary science, particularly as it relates to environmental research and public health. To further the field, this article provides in-depth information on how to conduct transdisciplinary research. Using the case of a transdisciplinary, community-based, participatory action, environmental health disparities study in California's Central Valley provides an in-depth look at how to do transdisciplinary research. Working with researchers from the fields of social sciences, public health, biological engineering, and land, air, and water resources, this study aims to answer community residents' questions related to the health disparities they face due to environmental exposure. Through this case study, I articulate not only the logistics of how to conduct transdisciplinary research but also the logics. The implications for transdisciplinary methodologies in health disparity research are further discussed, particularly in the context of team science and convergence science.
越来越多的资助者（即国家、公共资助者，如美国的国立卫生研究院和国家科学基金会）和学者都认为，单一学科难以独自研究我们所面临的紧迫的社会、健康和环境问题，特别是环境暴露、日益加剧的健康不平等和气候变化问题。为了更好地理解这些紧迫的社会问题，资助者和学者提倡采用跨学科方法，以便利用不同和多个学科的分析能力来解决这些问题并增进我们的理解。然而，很少有研究探讨如何进行这种研究。为此，本文回顾了跨学科科学，特别是与环境研究和公共卫生相关的跨学科科学。为了推动该领域的发展，本文提供了关于如何进行跨学科研究的深入信息。本文以加利福尼亚州中央山谷的一项跨学科、基于社区的参与式行动、环境健康不平等研究为例，深入探讨了如何进行跨学科研究。该研究与社会科学、公共卫生、生物工程以及土地、空气和水资源等领域的研究人员合作，旨在回答社区居民提出的与他们因环境暴露而面临的健康不平等相关的问题。通过这个案例研究，我不仅阐述了进行跨学科研究的具体步骤，还探讨了其中的逻辑。本文进一步讨论了跨学科方法在健康不平等研究中的意义，特别是在团队科学和融合科学的背景下。
