Conducting Interdisciplinary Research to Promote Healthy and Safe Employment in Health Care: Promises and Pitfalls

Abstract

Due to the complexity of human health, emphasis is increasingly being placed on the need for and conduct of multidisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary health research. Yet many academic and research organizations--and the discipline-specific associations and journals--may not yet be prepared to adopt changes necessary to optimally support interdisciplinary work. This article presents an ongoing interdisciplinary research project's efforts to investigate mechanisms and pathways that lead to occupational health disparities among healthcare workers. It describes the promises and pitfalls encountered during the research,and outlines effective strategies that emerged as a result. Lessons learned include: conflict resolution regarding theoretical and methodological differences; establishing a sense of intellectual ownership of the research, as well as guidelines for multiple authorship; and development and utilization of protocols, communication systems, and tools. This experience suggests a need for the establishment of supportive structures and processes to promote successful interdisciplinary research.

Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity in health research, services, education and policy: 2. Promotors, barriers, and strategies of enhancement

“…23 Many institutions place an emphasis on single author publications as their reward structure. This discourages scientists from tackling projects that require an interdisciplinary team.…”

“…25 In medicine, the final author is often the principal investigator and thus this position is also highly valued. 22,23 But in economics, authors are considered to have equally contributed to the paper and are likely to be listed alphabetically. 26 Additionally, there are not as many outlets to publish interdisciplinary work.…”

“…4 Disciplines differ dramatically in the acceptance rate of articles in their professional journals and in the average length of time between submission and acceptance of a study for publication. 23 For example, the average acceptance rates in the top five journals of several disciplines were: 9% in economics, 22% in psychology, 69% in physics; 27 and 42% in 75 health-related journals. 28 …”

The Making of an Interdisciplinary Partnership: The Case of the Chicago Food System Collaborative

“…Several researchers have highlighted challenges of interdisciplinary work, among them issues of power and control, integrating different points of view and issues of trust (see Slatin et al, 2004;Stumpf & Clark, 1999). The following is a discussion of the challenges experienced by CFCC team members which include (1) uneven time commitment, (2) difficulties in integrating all points of view and keeping all partnership members abreast on project developments, (3) the dynamic character of membership in the partnership, and (4) building trust within the group.…”

“…While many interdisciplinary research partnerships have been successful in developing and promoting innovations designed to address health and other social complex problems (see Behringer, Bishop, Edwards, & Frank, 1999;Checkoway, 1997;Mayfield, Hellwig, & Banks, 1999;Slatin, Galizzi, Melillo, & Mawn, 2004), some interdisciplinary efforts have not been successful. This has led social scholars to assert that interdisciplinary work is difficult to implement and to sustain over time in part because of the complexity of drawing from and integrating different methodological and conceptual views (Long, 2001).…”