Incorporating intersectionality theory into population health research methodology: challenges and the potential to advance health equity.

By G. Bauer. Social Science & Medicine (1967), 2014

1,377 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Intersectionality theory, developed to address the non-additivity of effects of sex/gender and race/ethnicity but extendable to other domains, allows for the potential to study health and disease at different intersections of identity, social position, processes of oppression or privilege, and policies or institutional practices. Intersectionality has the potential to enrich population health research through improved validity and greater attention to both heterogeneity of effects and causal processes producing health inequalities. Moreover, intersectional population health research may serve to both test and generate new theories. Nevertheless, its implementation within health research to date has been primarily through qualitative research. In this paper, challenges to incorporation of intersectionality into population health research are identified or expanded upon. These include: 1) confusion of quantitative terms used metaphorically in theoretical work with similar-sounding statistical methods; 2) the question of whether all intersectional positions are of equal value, or even of sufficient value for study; 3) distinguishing between intersecting identities, social positions, processes, and policies or other structural factors; 4) reflecting embodiment in how processes of oppression and privilege are measured and analysed; 5) understanding and utilizing appropriate scale for interactions in regression models; 6) structuring interaction or risk modification to best convey effects, and; 7) avoiding assumptions of equidistance or single level in the design of analyses. Addressing these challenges throughout the processes of conceptualizing and planning research and in conducting analyses has the potential to improve researchers' ability to more specifically document inequalities at varying intersectional positions, and to study the potential individual- and group-level causes that may drive these observed inequalities. A greater and more thoughtful incorporation of intersectionality can promote the creation of evidence that is directly useful in population-level interventions such as policy changes, or that is specific enough to be applicable within the social contexts of affected communities.

Subfields: Pharmacy, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/324e3bf0d0ce26265db555ea1430aa3c7c3c5182

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Citations in the corpus

Intersectionality in Quantitative Psychological Research (2016, positive): “In discussing the challenges of combining quantitative methods with an intersectional approach, Bauer (2014) distinguished the study of intersecting identities and positions of power in the social context from that of processes and policies related to oppression and privilege.”
Intersectionality in quantitative research: A systematic review of its emergence and applications of theory and methods (2021, background): “There has also been a growing emphasis on the need for multilevel modelling to examine structural inequity by incorporating group-level variables such as state-level policies or neighbourhood-level resource indicators (Bauer, 2014; Bowleg & Bauer, 2016; Scott & Siltanen, 2017; Spierings, 2012).”
Disparities at the intersection of marginalized groups (2016, background): “Recently, researchers have argued that quantitative approaches to intersectionality hold promise for public health as they could inform policy, and also called attention to the scant guidance onwhichmeasures andmodels are appropriate [3, 4, 11, 12].”
Invited Reflection (2016, background): “In a series of exciting developments, however, scholars from disciplines as diverse as epidemiology (Bauer, 2014), political science (Hancock, 2007), and psychology (Warner, 2008) have advanced critiques and insightful guidelines for conducting intersectionality research quantitatively.”
Health Disparities due to Diminished Return among Black Americans: Public Policy Solutions (2018, background): “The concept that it is not simply race but the intersection of race, gender, and class that shapes access to opportunity structure and the impact of stress is a cornerstone of the intersectionality framework (Bauer, 2014).”