Conclusion: Addressing the challenges of doing health promotion research

Abstract

Chapters in this volume are introductory-level presentations of approaches that borrow mainly from the social sciences to knowledge production and of methodological responses to the epistemological challenges of doing health promotion research. The various approaches to knowledge production that compose Part I address two main concerns. The first relates to the moral imperative that health promotion research contribute to the transformative agenda of health promotion and, thus, that a way be found to reconcile values and science. The second refers to the necessary embeddedness of health promotion in context. The added value of the variety of approaches that coexist in health promotion research is to offer an understanding of a wide range of relevant mechanisms and phenomena (from social to psychological to biological) that contribute to health, health inequalities, and the transformative agenda of the field. Chapters in Parts II to V present research practices that originate in a variety of approaches to knowledge production and that provide methodological responses to the epistemological challenges of doing health promotion research. Most introduce methods of organizing the characteristically multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder conversations of health promotion research in a way that is constructive and respectful and that makes knowledge possible and actionable.