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Table 6 Assessment of the case study’s consistency with ecohealth components identified in the scoping review of ecohealth

From: Identifying the impediments and enablers of ecohealth for a case study on health and environmental sanitation in Hà Nam, Vietnam

Ecohealth component

Component explanation

Corresponding project elements

Source of information

Participation

- from the beginning, stakeholders (including affected population) collaborate on various research stages using local knowledge and addressing some of their priorities; also refers to participatory action research

- participation from member of local institutions and community members consisted of providing information for the researchers’ project and helping them collect data

- interview theme: “limited participation” (Table 4)

System

- understanding the whole and its parts (issues, interactions, key actors, components, and interrelationships); includes systems science

- not be evaluated at the time of this study1

N/A

Multidisciplinary

- more than two disciplines working together in their traditional roles

- More than one discipline was involved (epidemiology/public health, environmental engineering) but all were allied health professions

- project documents (Table 3)

Action-oriented

- results in something done to solve or mitigate the research problem under study

- no interventions or changes were planned at the time of this study but they intended to address this in the next phase of research

- interview with project lead (interview transcript, not shown here)

Complexity

- made up of many interrelated parts; where ecohealth is best applicable

- the project was designed to address several dimensions of the sanitation problem and made efforts to share results and perspectives across disciplines and stakeholders

- project documents (Table 3 and Figure 3)

Long-term

- ecohealth requires a time-commitment; improvements/outcomes might only be seen in the future; difficult to contain within a single project

- data collection started in 2008; next phase of research was expected to last until 2013

- project documents (Table 3)

- project involved multiple components

Indicators

- measures used for study outcomes and monitoring should be developed by involved stakeholders and may be different according to each group

- community-identified indicators had not been discussed with the researchers or addressed at the time of this project

- “community identified signs of improvement” (Table 5)

Adaptive management

- an iterative learning process with stakeholder participation involving monitoring, evaluating, and adjusting the plan based on the information generated in the process

- could not tell at the time of this study1

N/A

Transdisciplinarity

- collaboration between researchers and practitioners from complimentary disciplines/sectors and/or other stakeholders on a problem; uses multiple methods/tools that facilitate the generation of new frameworks, concepts, methods, institutions, etc. from the knowledge sharing and/or interaction

- integration of research components was not clear; integration of results was anticipated, but how this will happen was not clear

- interview theme: “integration is not clear” (Table 4)

Equity

- addresses differences between groups affected by research problem; gender (roles, responsibilities), power (decision making, access to resources), and trade-offs (who benefits)

- statistical analysis of data had been stratified by gender

- interview with PhD student on health research component (interview transcript, not shown here)

Sustainability

- meeting the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations; the outcome or goal of ecohealth, also refers to sustainability of the environment and/or of interventions/projects

- could not tell at the time of this study1

N/A

Socio-ecological

- understanding the human and environmental components of a problem and their interaction

- health component quantifies human health risks and exposure

- project document (Table 3)

- social component examines perceptions & behaviours

- interview theme: “integration is not clear” (Table 4)

- environmental component quantifies nutrient flows in agricultural & sanitation system

 

- the interaction between components not addressed yet, as integration is not clear

 

SOHOs (self-organizing, holarchic open system)

- characterized by holarchy (interactions between nested hierarchies), feedback loops (consequences for another part of the system – positive or negative), self-organization (combination of feedback, boundaries, and openness)

- could not tell at this point in the project1

N/A

Negotiate

- a process in which the decisions on objectives, methods, and indicators are made with stakeholders

- the research was conducted according to researchers’ priorities, mainly driven by a conceptual framework developed a priori

- interview theme: “priorities” (Table 4)

- project document (Figure 1)