Intersectionality and eco-social theory: a review of potentials for public health knowledge and social justice

Abstract

In public health research and reporting, there is an increasing interest in eco-social theory and intersectional approaches to understand health inequity. Both approaches focus on the macrosocial causes determining health inequity and work under the premise that public health must be tied to an ethical project of engaging with the populations it serves. This paper critically reviews emerging literature on intersectionality in public health to identify, first, how it extends eco-social theorizing. Second, we identify how it may challenge broader premises in public health research which are aligned with reductionist, biomedical rationales. To do so, we draw on Patricia Hill Collins’ definition of intersectionality as both a knowledge project and a social justice project, inviting an entire range of theoretical, epistemological, methodological and ethical questions. As such, a more critical reading of intersectionality as initially envisioned by Black feminism has the potential to contribute to a paradigm shift in understanding public health research and reporting as a means for engaging with injustice rather than a tool for describing a population and its burden of disease.