Purpose: This discussion paper aims to contribute to a greater understanding of the state of the art of research engaged with conceptual matters of space and place for health and care. Method: The authors, who represent a variety of academic disciplines, discuss and demonstrate the conceptual recognition of space and place in research in health and caring sciences building upon own work and experience. Results: To explore the concepts of space and place for health and care is a research pursuit of utmost importance, and should be made through transdisciplinary research collaborations, whereby spatial theories from various disciplines could be communicated to cultivate truly novel and well-informed research. Furthermore, engaging with relational and topological perceptions of space and place poses methodological challenges to overcome in future research on health and care. Conclusions: We argue that there is a need for accelerating spatially informed research on health and care that is informed by current theories and perspectives on space and place, and transdisciplinary research collaborations are a means to achieving this.

The concept reflects various sets of ideas as well as expressing both relational and absolute perspectives of space. The most challenging for nursing research and practice seems to be investigation, operationalization, and testing the implementation of sets of ideas reflecting a relational thinking of space.