Integrating Intersectionality and Biomedicine in Health Disparities Research

Abstract

Persisting health disparities have lead to calls for an increase in health research to address them. Biomedical scientists call for research that stratifies individual indicators associated with health disparities, for example, ethnicity. Feminist social scientists recommend feminist intersectionality research. Intersectionality is the multiplicative effect of inequalities experienced by nondominant marginalized groups, for example, ethnic minorities, women, and the poor. The elimination of health disparities necessitates integration of both paradigms in health research. This study provides a practical application of the integration of biomedical and feminist intersectionality paradigms in nursing research, using a psychiatric intervention study with battered Latino women as an example.

The odd couple: using biomedical and intersectional approaches to address health inequities

“…Although intersectionality’s promise in the context of public health is now well established, critics have also pointed out its marginal attention to the biological and have noted this as an area requiring far more reflection [14–16,23]. At a conceptual level, a number of scholars [21,80] have proposed the use of the state of the body itself as an additional category to be treated in the same way as others such as SES, ethnicity, or gender.…”

“…Integrating intersectionality and biological perspectives requires well-considered decisions at every stage of the research process, from conceptualization of the problem and study design and implementation to interpretation of findings [16]. This involves establishing intersectoral and transdisciplinary collaborations among partners and researchers committed to communicate and work across systemic power-based inequities in the research enterprise.…”

“…The second example moves from the global to the local to illustrate how understandings of PTSD can be fundamentally transformed by an integration of biomedical and intersectional perspectives [16,89]. A community-based, mixed methods study with Latina women who experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) sought to develop (1) acceptable and effective treatment for PTSD; (2) local community-based, accessible mental health treatment resources; (3) clinical and research collaborations with community partners, and to address unequal power relationships between the community (activists, service providers, and residents) and the health care system in the community.…”

“…Put simply, biomedicine has usually taken a reductionist approach focused on the physiology of the body, with health and illness understood and treated as internal to its various parts [13]. Conversely social scientists have tended to overlook biological aspects of human experience in favor of focusing on the social, economic, and historical contexts shaping health and illness [13–16]. …”

“…However, the potential synergies between biomedicine and social science have increasingly been recognized, and interdisciplinary collaboration has become more common. Nevertheless, more attention is needed to develop the full potential of this approach for transforming knowledge production related to health, illness, and well-being [16,18–23]. In particular, such work will need to focus much more on weaving together biology/biomedicine with a social science approach that is explicitly intersectional.…”