Table 2 Overview of the theories underpinning a critical transdisciplinary approach

Political economy

• Political economy centers power and the distribution of resources (i.e., access to money, participating in commerce at the individual and global level); it focuses on the interconnectedness between the state, economy, and the rest of society [14].

• The political nature of the economic system functions to exclude people on the basis of ability, race, gender, class, social groups, organizations, and countries creating a hierarchical social order that is contingent on its success [14].

• A political economy lens shines a spotlight on how economic systems, such as capitalism and communism, perform in reality to better understand structures of power and the experiences of individuals through the matrix of domination [3, 37, 45] .

• The Political Economy of Health: A Useful Theoretical Tool for Health Education Practice [14].

• The Persistent Power of “Race” in the Cultural and Political Economy of Racism [46].

• The Political Economy of the Disability Marketplace [47].

• Black Political Economy in the 21st Century: Exploring the Interface of Economics and Black Studies—Addressing the Challenge of Harold Cruse [48].

• The Disability Business: Rehabilitation in America [49].

• Why do some populations of people or geographic sites around the world have better health outcomes than others?

• How do different health-care systems shape health inequities?

• Why do some of the wealthiest countries have relatively poor health outcomes despite their power, status, and resources?

• Who benefits from particular forms of integrated care and who is left out?

Critical political ecology

• Critical political ecology aims to comprehend ecological reality by merging political economy with the politics of the built environment and the geography of whiteness [50].

• Interrogates and exposes hidden politics of political ecology that transcend epistemological boundaries, highlighting the politics that operate to produce particular living conditions, built environment, and environmental change [50].

• Critical political ecology is contingent on a historical analysis to better understand and illuminate past hidden and current dynamics between individuals and their ecological environment [13, 51].

• The Political Ecology of Disease as One New Focus for Medical Geography [13].

• Third World Political Ecology [51].

• Critical Political Ecology: The Politics of Environmental Science [50].

• Why is the prevalence of TBI higher in particular geographical contexts?

• Why is the prevalence of TBI higher in different populations in the same geographical context?

• How does the geographical and historic context of the injury contribute to the disease experience and health outcomes?

Critical race theory

• Originated in the field of law as a reaction to the absences of race within critical legal studies.

• Defined as the collective work of African American legal scholars advocating for the development of a body of theory that recollects and displays the role of racism in American law which could be applied to end all forms of racism and subordination [52].

• Interrogates and re-thinks how racism is viewed as a social determinant of health to fill gaps in current understandings by viewing it from the perspective of what influence peoples’ living conditions such as occupational attainment, housing, and access to health services [53].

• Foregrounds and challenges racism as a normalized process that largely goes unacknowledged and unaddressed [32].

• The Key Writings that Formed The Movement [54].

• Critical Race Theory: Past, present, and future [55].

• Critical Race Theory: An introduction [56].

• Why is there is a higher prevalence of violence and TBI in Black communities?

• Why are Black individuals reported to score lower on community integration?

• How is race considered within the methodology of TBI research, and what is the impact of the conceptualization of racism on study outcomes?

• What kind of information is collected about race and how is it associated with integrated care?

• How is race-related information linked to context for understanding why certain racialized groups have differential outcomes in community integration?

Intersectionality

• Concerned with how multiple systems of oppression work together to produce new, complex categories of suffering [57] known as interlocking oppression [58].

• Rejects the idea of singular identities, i.e., that race, gender, ability or class may be understood as separate, unconnected categories [43, 57, 59].

• Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics [60].

• Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color [57].

• What aspects social identity are collected in the research process, and how are they understood to be interconnected?

• To what extent are multiple intersectional forms of identity and their processes used to interpret the findings?

• How might outcomes be different had there have been consideration for the multiple intersecting identities of the participants?

• How do differential health outcomes reflect the ways in which individuals with particular social identities experience integrated care?