Concepts of Capability and Overlooked Applications
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11024044 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paula K Lorgelly (0000-0002-8990-9514), Joanna Coast (0000-0002-3537-5166), R Smith (0000-0003-3837-6559), Richard D Smith (0000-0002-4553-5426) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 100 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 1823-1824 |
| Publication date | 2010-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Public Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0090-0036 • E-ISSN: 1541-0048 |
| Publisher | American Public Health Association (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2105/ajph.2010.196170 |
| PMID | 20724670 |
| PMCID | PMC2936996 |
| OpenAlex | W2085840838 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 7 |
We read with interest the recent paper by Ruger on conceptualizing and operationalizing health capability. She stated that ‘‘No work to date has developed a conceptual model or health capability profile leading to methods for addressing health capability deprivations,’’ and then goes on to develop such a model and profile. We agree that literature in this area is limited but draw readers’ attention to a number of articles from the health economics discipline that explore both theoretical issues and applications of the approach. Notably, although these articles are written specifically about operationalizing the approach in health economics as a means of generating new outcome measures for evaluating interventions (be they health technology, public health, or social care inventions), they do not focus on health capability per se, but on capability in its broader context, of which health is just one component. The multidimensional nature of the capability approach is one of the major benefits of the concept. To reduce it to a single dimension does not advance the current approach; it assumes that all that is important is health. However, in the context of people’s lives there will be other choices with which they are faced. The health capability profile that is presented is extremely comprehensive, but possibly to the point of being impractical. It appears to include nearly every health measure and health influence imaginable (thereby conflating capability with influences on capability), with Ruger giving little justification for her particular choice of measures and instruments. A large amount of data, although informative, can be unmanageable in any practical context; and while there have been improvements in the ease and usefulness of self-administered questions, lengthy questionnaires often suffer from low response rates (even the Short-Form 36 has been reduced to the Short-Form 12 and Short-Form 8). Sen strongly advocates a participatory approach in developing capability sets (profiles), such that the capabilities are both person and culture specific. Our previous research has developed methodology to reduce and refine a lengthy questionnaire, and our other work in this area has employed qualitative techniques to generate attributes of capability from the general public. Ruger hopes that her ‘‘health capability profile will help medical and public health researchers and practitioners evaluate the costs and effectiveness of medical interventions and behaviour approaches that might foster health capability.’’ We share similar ideals but have wider expectations of the concept of capability, and we are also somewhat more advanced in operationalizing it. j
Business · Capability approach · Context (archaeology) · Data science · Dimension (graph theory) · Economic growth · Economics · Epistemology · Health care · Management science · Operationalization · Psychological intervention · Public health · Risk analysis (engineering) · Computer Science · Engineering · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations · Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Mathematics · Medicine · Nursing
| Citations per year | 0.07 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2011 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |