Transdisciplinary approaches to understanding and eliminating ethnic health disparities: are we on the right track?

The public health community's struggle to combat domestic health disparities has occurred in a context of increasing implementation of transdisciplinary research approaches. While conceptually appealing, the focus on the multilevel framing of the causes of ethnic health disparities by large-scale transdisciplinary initiatives has, to date, resulted in few tangible products. Moreover, intervention and community engagement outcomes have received less attention than more process-oriented research outcomes, namely assessing levels of transdisciplinarity achieved during the research process. We argue that a renewed focus on the ultimate products of transdisciplinary approaches, namely effective multilevel interventions, specific health outcome improvements, and greater community involvement, will aid this promising research paradigm in carrying out its philosophical commitment to ending population health disparities.