Scientific Inquiry

I n recent years, research in health disparities has become an important focus of nursing science. This research explores the relationship between health and social factors such as race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic position, and educational attainment. Research of this nature has significantly enhanced our understanding of the factors that contribute to differences in health among various groups of people. However, researchers are challenged to understand the complexities of how inequalities in health came to be and how we can more comprehensively address them. In particular, we need to avoid ascribing deficits in health to particular characteristics of an individual or group. In clinical practice, pediatric nurses are faced with similar challenges. They develop and implement interventions to improve health promotion behaviors and thereby reduce health disparities. However, nurses are constrained by the institutional settings and standards within which they practice. In our present healthcare system, interventions tend to focus primarily on the individual or family unit. Locating the individual as the primary site of health in nursing research and practice is limiting, because it sets aside wider social structures that serve to maintain and engender these disparities. These structures may include economic organization, political systems, and societal power relationships that privilege some individuals while marginalizing others. Critical social theory provides a useful approach for capturing these broader contextual perspectives.