COMMENTARIES
Postpositivist theory
Speaking theoretically about population health
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor J R Dunn
Centre for Research on Inner-City Health, St Michael’s Hospital, 30 Bond Street, Toronto, ON M5B 1W8, Canada; jim.dunn@utoronto.ca
The theoretical project of population health is still in early infancy and is still quite marginal to the main emphasis of most publications in the field.
Keywords: critical realism; theory; population health; social epidemiology; explanation
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
In the past few years, several population health and social epidemiology scholars have argued the need for better theory.1–3 Given the comparatively underdeveloped social theoretical foundation for population health research, any progress in this area is reason for celebration. The glossary by Carpiano and Daley in this issue of JECH4 will help to reinforce and expand the awareness of the importance of theory in our work. Yet I would argue the theoretical project of population health is still in very early infancy and sadly, is still quite marginal to the main emphases of most publications in the field. Carpiano and Daley suggest that the need for theory is at least partly due to more interdisciplinary work, while I believe the main issue is between competing notions of what constitutes "explanation" and "theory" in science, which can vary as much within disciplines as it can between them. In the
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