Participation and transdisciplinarity in Ecohealth: a social network analysis perspective

Abstract

Ecohealth uses participatory and transdisciplinary approaches to understand the relationships between the components of socio-ecological systems and how these interactions influence the health of human populations. The article aims to use Social Network Analysis (SNA) to understand the role of collaborative relationships between the various actors involved in participatory and transdisciplinary processes in Ecohealth projects. We present a set of SNA indicators to characterize the evolution and equity of participation and to differentiate the inter and the transdisciplinarity. The analysis was based on the collaboration network among the members of the Ecohealth Field Building Leadership Initiative for Vector-Borne Diseases (VBD) in Latin America and Caribbean. The participatory process intensified throughout the project, with more subjects involved and a growing number of collaborations. Cooperation between members from the social, environmental, and health sciences is unbalanced; thus, health scientists predominate. The few environmental scientists are, however, actively involved in interdisciplinary collaborations. The proposed approach has wide application to study participation and transdisciplinarity in projects about health and environment.