IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v58y2004i4p675-685.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of methods in maintaining orthodox beliefs in health research

Author

Listed:
  • Dean, Kathryn

Abstract

Views about correct ways of obtaining knowledge develop from socially constructed tenets and beliefs. The dominant beliefs about how health research should be conducted are derived from the biomedical model of human health. The beliefs are maintained by traditions developed in support of the orthodox model and by power relationships. This paper examines the impact of the orthodox views of the biomedical model on the research methods used to investigate population health issues. Experimental design is the "gold standard" for research in the biomedical model. Beliefs about the superiority of experimental research have affected most types of health research. The role that methods assume in maintaining the orthodoxy is examined. Acceptance in other health disciplines of the attitudes of the dominant paradigm and limited options for research and training in alternatives to the orthodoxy became major influences reinforcing orthodox beliefs about health research.

Suggested Citation

  • Dean, Kathryn, 2004. "The role of methods in maintaining orthodox beliefs in health research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 675-685, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:58:y:2004:i:4:p:675-685
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(03)00219-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Normand Carpentier, 2013. "Entry Into a Care Trajectory," SAGE Open, , vol. 3(2), pages 21582440134, June.
    2. Unger-SaldaƱa, Karla & Infante-CastaƱeda, Claudia B., 2011. "Breast cancer delay: A grounded model of help-seeking behaviour," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(7), pages 1096-1104, April.
    3. Landsman, Gail H., 2006. "What evidence, whose evidence?: Physical therapy in New York State's clinical practice guideline and in the lives of mothers of disabled children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2670-2680, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:58:y:2004:i:4:p:675-685. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.