Qualitative methods and the commercial determinants of health: Insights from the social sciences

Eduardo J. Gómez

Social Science & Medicine, 2025, vol. 380, issue C

Abstract: While the commercial determinants of health (CDoH) is a growing field of study, insufficient attention has been paid to developing its qualitative methodological and theoretical contributions. CDoH researchers may benefit from considering the social science community's usage of qualitative methodological tools such as case studies for theory development, causal mechanisms and process-tracing for improved causal inference. While CDoH researchers have become interested in quantitative methods and establishing indicators and datasets for comparative statistical analysis, this article finds limitations with this approach and suggests that researchers focus first on establishing ample case study qualitative evidence with the eventual goal of devising theory-informed quantitative indicators and datasets. The timing is propitious for CDoH researchers and social scientists to work together to strengthen CDoH's methodological and theoretical contributions.

Keywords: Qualitative methods; Commercial determinants of health; Case studies; Causal inference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953625004988
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:380:y:2025:i:c:s0277953625004988

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118168

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().