The overall charge to this Core is to tackle the """"""""work of specification"""""""" at the level of research practice needed to apply CF to recovery in social contexts. In the opening year we undertake the foundational work needed before measures and study designs can be developed for CF-informed research, and provide oversight and consultation for active and proposed projects. The MC will work in concert with the Capabilities Seminar (OC) and investigators in PRC to translate CF into a conceptual model suitable for MHSR. Specifying the model for psychiatric disabilities provides the groundwork to develop next stage methods and metrics. It will also enable us to import social science theory to further develop the descriptive and assessment tools needed to appraise capabilities, choice and environments that foster them in a mental health context. Year 1 projects apply economics and social/community psychology theories to CF.
The aims of the Methods Core are to: 1. Specify and operationalize key constructs and propositions in CF as applied to psychiatric disability; 2. Use social science theory to translate elements of CF for this purpose - first, Grossman's Health Capital Model from economics and environmental assessment from social and community psychology; 3. Ensure the scientific rigor of Center projects by assessing research designs, reviewing ongoing projects, and providing consultation on design and analyses to Center affiliates and the OC;and 4. Evaluate the Center's CBPR process on an ongoing and formal basis. MC activities begin with 3 projects alongside ongoing oversight and consultation to both active pilots and others in development in CS. The lead project specifies CF for psychiatric disability, using mixed methods and the Center's participatory process to develop a rigorous language for capturing the distinctive value added by CF to MHSR, and to consider study designs and measurement options appropriate to the framing constraints of capabilities. A second project constructs a template for applying social science theory to CF in a participatory context, applying Becker's human capital approach to the demand for (mental) health. A third project uses theory in community psychology to explore characteristics of environments that foster two fundamental capabilities (self-determination and affiliation) for people with severe mental illness;this pilot explicitly addresses tradeoffs, an underdeveloped aspect of CF, and is geared to drafting a full research proposal to develop the environmental metrics. In out years, as expertise and empirical database allow, we will build on the initial conceptual work to design studies, develop measures and apply social science theory to CF. Prospects include sociological theory on status reduction and stigma, which captures the moral dimension of capability deprivation [100;141];or using political theory to operationalize """"""""recognition"""""""" - a vital element in the identity politics that have taken shape in the consumer/survivor wing of the recovery movement [232].
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