TY - JOUR AU - Dugle, Gordon AU - Wulifan, Joseph Kwame AU - Tanyeh, John Paul AU - Quentin, Wilm PY - 2020 DA - 2020/07/14 TI - A critical realist synthesis of cross-disciplinary health policy and systems research: defining characteristic features, developing an evaluation framework and identifying challenges JO - Health Research Policy and Systems SP - 79 VL - 18 IS - 1 AB - Health policy and systems research (HPSR) is an inherently cross-disciplinary field of investigation. However, conflicting conceptualisations about inter-, multi- and transdisciplinary research have contributed to confusion about the characteristics of cross-disciplinary approaches in HPSR. This review was conducted to (1) define the characteristic features of context–mechanism–outcome (CMO) configurations in cross-disciplinary HPSR, (2) develop criteria for evaluating cross-disciplinarity and (3) synthesise emerging challenges of the approach. SN - 1478-4505 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-020-00556-2 DO - 10.1186/s12961-020-00556-2 ID - Dugle2020 ER -