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[Interdisciplinarity in action: "trap-words" in interdisciplinary research]
Context:
Interdisciplinary work is essential to understand and address Social Inequalities in Health (SIH), but involves a number of practical difficulties. The AAPRISS programme, comprises project leaders and researchers from various disciplines in order to co-construct the reorientation of prevention projects, in order to more effectively reduce SIH. Certain challenges emerged during this project concerning the interdisciplinary work, especially misunderstanding of certain terms with different meanings according to various disciplines, within the same discipline, or even between British and US English. The objective is to identify these "trap-words" in order to create a glossary clearly explaining the various meanings, rather than rigidly defining a unique correct definition.
Methods:
The words leading to misunderstandings were identified and several definitions were provided by participating researchers and literature searches.
Results:
Five sets of words were defined: "politique, programme, projet et intervention"; "impact"; "ressortissant, public cible, population cible, bénéficiaire, et communauté"; "inégalités sociales de santé, disparités et iniquités"; and "protocole".
Discussion:
Issues raised by the construction of this glossary, designed to support co-construction between researchers from different disciplines, allow reflection on the richness and difficulties of interdisciplinary research.
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