The INHERIT project is driven by the quest to find the policies, practices and innovations that are helping to foster healthier and more sustainable lifestyles and behaviours. As part of our research, our literature review led by RIVM brings together existing knowledge of the main environmental stressors and their impact on health across the social gradient in the field of living, moving and consuming. With our partners, we fine-tuned a series of questions and established templates to help us extract the most relevant information from the respective sources.
Coming from different scientific disciplines, we clarified and defined a common working model and the main concepts that we use. In reference to Morris et al., 2006, we chose to use the modified Driving forces through Pressures and Environmental States to Exposures, health Effects and Actions (DPSEEA) framework as a basis for the literature review. We adapted this model to integrate a feedback loop with additional insights into social behaviour (Bamberg, 2013) and sustainable lifestyles with explicit attention for inequalities. Our research will include an informative glossary defining clearly all the main concepts.
The literature review process includes a ‘review of reviews’ and constant summaries of progress. Our working model also includes detailed quantitative information from the in-depth research into the literature sources. Another specific element of our research project is the identification of qualitative grey literature which is essentially all publication that cannot be found in scientific (English-based) databases. The added-value of grey literature is that it provides additional insights into policies, innovations and interventions. This information is most relevant for our work on finding promising practices in the sectors of living, moving and consuming in different European countries.
The results of the literature review will be summarized in a report and in scientific articles. It will also be put in a database to provide open source free information. The information from the literature review will feed into the development of the Common Analytical Framework (CAF).
Please check the pictures from our first Literature Review meeting in September, in Brussels.