The point is to change it: connecting research to policy and practice

The final chapter begins with epidemics in Africa and Asia, then considers challenges to health and illness research, and ways forward. Disconnections in theory, policy and practice are contrasted with the connections that need to be made in theory and practice if pandemics, climate change and other global threats to health are to be contained. Contradictory social science theories all need to be connected and combined, like medical science, into a larger coherent critical realist framework that goes beyond describing and measuring. The detailed example is about contested understandings of mental distress within neoliberal reform of community mental health services. Eight commitments for useful health research are followed by methods for Utopian research about future change.