A Cultural-Ecosocial Framework for Brain Health Research
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: There has been enormous investment in neuroscience research to advance our knowledge ofneurological and psychiatric disorders and to identify the mechanisms that promote healthyneurodevelopment and brain functioning. However, despite advances, much of this research hasfocused on nonrepresentative populations, clinical samples, or laboratory analogues of real-worldsettings. The application of neuroscience to brain health can be greatly enhanced by systematicintegration of contextual factors into research to ensure that findings are representative of the relevantpopulations, and that they capture relevant variables of the environment and social-cultural context.This contextual information should inform the design of studies, strengthen methodological rigour,enrich the interpretation of results, and guide the translation of scientific findings into policy andpractice. The aim of this paper is to provide key principles for an integrative framework for brain healthresearch. This is motivated by the concern that to advance knowledge translation in clinical, publichealth and policy domains, neuroscientific studies on brain disorders and mental health need toincorporate measures of structural and social determinants of health in research to contribute to real-world impact at scale.
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7167355046