TY - JOUR

T1 - Practice-guided public health philosophy

AU - Folker, Anna Paldam

AU - Lauridsen, Sigurd

AU - Andersen, Martin

AU - Kongsholm, Nana Cecilie

AU - Varga, Somogy

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s) 2021.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Although highly relevant, philosophical theory and philosophical competences are rarely integrated in empirical public health research. We suggest a variant of applied philosophy that is valuable for the development and improvement of public health research. We call it practice-guided public health philosophy because: (i) research questions derive from public health challenges, i.e. real-life concerns that relate to the prevention of disease or the promotion of health and well-being, (ii) the ultimate test of success lies within an empirical framework aiming to improve public health practices and (iii) philosophers collaborate very closely with different kinds of empirical researchers in the different stages of the research process. Using examples from current public health projects at the National Institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark, we outline three paradigmatic cases of practice-guided public health philosophy: (i) by using philosophy as an idea generator of empirical research, (ii) by using philosophy as a frame of reference for interpreting ethnographic data and (iii) by using philosophy as an explanatory resource for discussing survey and register data.

AB - Although highly relevant, philosophical theory and philosophical competences are rarely integrated in empirical public health research. We suggest a variant of applied philosophy that is valuable for the development and improvement of public health research. We call it practice-guided public health philosophy because: (i) research questions derive from public health challenges, i.e. real-life concerns that relate to the prevention of disease or the promotion of health and well-being, (ii) the ultimate test of success lies within an empirical framework aiming to improve public health practices and (iii) philosophers collaborate very closely with different kinds of empirical researchers in the different stages of the research process. Using examples from current public health projects at the National Institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark, we outline three paradigmatic cases of practice-guided public health philosophy: (i) by using philosophy as an idea generator of empirical research, (ii) by using philosophy as a frame of reference for interpreting ethnographic data and (iii) by using philosophy as an explanatory resource for discussing survey and register data.

KW - empirical studies

KW - philosophy

KW - practice guided

KW - public health

KW - theory

U2 - 10.1093/heapro/daab082

DO - 10.1093/heapro/daab082

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 34115875

AN - SCOPUS:85122972927

VL - 36

SP - 1775

EP - 1782

JO - Health Promotion International

JF - Health Promotion International

SN - 0957-4824

IS - 6

ER -