Framework for Applied Intersectionality Research (FAIR)
FAIR reframes intersectionality as a critical transformative tool to advance health equity and social justice action, not just empirical research.
Historically rooted in US Black feminist activism, intersectionality emerged as an analytical lens through which to enhance knowledge about how multiple and interlocking systems of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, and class exploitation) shape the lives of US Black women and other historically marginalized populations, and as a tool for critical praxis, not empirical research. Intersectionality has numerous benefits for the field of public health.
. 2025. A Framework for Applied Intersectionality Research (FAIR): Reframing Intersectionality as a Tool to Advance Health Equity and Social Justice Action, Not Just Empirical Research. Annual Review Public Health. 47:In press. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-081324-042610
A message from Dr. Lisa Bowleg
FAIR is the acronym for Framework for Applied Intersectionality Research. Intersectionality, as the Combahee River Collective explained, is an “integrated analysis and practice based on the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking.” Intersectionality was not originally developed for social and behavioral science (SBS) research. Thus, considerable gaps exist about what it means to apply a critical theoretical framework rooted in Black, Latina and Native American feminist activism, not empirical research, to SBS research.
FAIR aims to address some of the conceptual, methodological, and practical gaps about what it means to apply intersectionality to qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods SBS research with fidelity to core concepts of intersectionality.
FAIR is a cross-disciplinary framework developed to highlight the key concepts of intersectionality and identify how these concepts relate to any intersectional SBS research project. FAIR is not the framework for intersectionality research, but a framework for it.
FAIR, highlighted here, is a process model that consists of six dynamic and iterative activities. Prioritize intersectional reflexivity (Activity 1) and Prioritize equitable community-engaged and community-led research (Activity 2), the first two FAIR activities crosscut all the other four activities of FAIR: Conceptualize research pursuant to intersectionality’s core themes (Activity 3), Design using methodologies and methods aligned with intersectionality’s core themes (Activity 4), and Analyze and interpret in sync with intersectionality’s core themes and ethics of representation (Activity 5) and Link intersectionality research to transformative action (Activity 6).
Why FAIR?
A key advantage of designing, conducting, writing, consulting, advising, and teaching about intersectionality and its application to various health equity SBS research projects for almost two decades — the last four of them in my role as Founder and CEO of the Intersectionality Training Institute — is the countless opportunities I’ve had to observe what people seeking to do intersectionality research: (1) want and need to be able to do that work; and (2) how and where they get stuck. I envisioned that a framework like FAIR could be useful.
There were numerous tells about where people were stuck. Among them were conceptualizations of intersectionality as “multiple marginalized identities,” which in turn focused on demographic differences primarily with nary a mention of or measure of power or intersectional social processes (e.g., intersectional stigma, intersectional discrimination); attempts to test intersectionality as a null hypothesis; confusion about how to apply intersectionality as a critical theoretical lens vs. as an empirical lens for descriptive or analytic intersectionality research; and in quantitative analyses, the reliance on statistical approaches, measures and methods that violate core assumptions of intersectionality (e.g., that gender and racial/ethnic group are independent rather than mutually constituted).
FAIR is also an affront to methodolatry, the uncritical worship of methods. Qualitative researchers have long derided the methodological fetishism that characterizes the approaches that most of us learn during in our undergraduate and graduate research methods courses. Know that old aphorism about when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail? So it is with intersectionality research too. I’ve lost count of the number of times someone has asked me about MAIHDA (Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy) without considering whether MAIHDA is the appropriate tool for the intersectional question they’re interested in examining, or whether the question they’re interested in even intersectional or aligned with intersectionality.
FAIR is meant to reorient researchers who want to engage with intersectionality seriously back to its core themes, and to intersectionality’s history as a tool for social justice action. It’s an antidote to those interested in casually flirting with intersectionality for research, or those inclined to sprinkle intersectionality into their grant proposals or manuscripts to add a bit of significant or innovative spice.
Why it’s important?
Intersectionality is powerful. Its explicit commitments to social justice, and transformative practice means that intersectionality is not content to be studied just for the sake of research.
Advancing empirical knowledge about intersectional health, economic, and social inequities is vital, but the real challenge and difficulty of intersectionality lies in its potential for transformative social justice action. How do we use the knowledge from intersectional research to advance social justice in practice? What does that look like? How do we get there? What other disciplines and skills are needed beyond research? What does success look like? What are some exemplars of transformative intersectional projects?
With its emphasis on the application of intersectionality to qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods SBS research projects with fidelity to intersectionality’s history and core themes, FAIR is important because it reminds intersectionality researchers that, to paraphrase the great reproductive justice activist Loretta J. Ross, intersectionality research is our process, social justice, equity and human rights are our goal.
Without FAIR as a beacon, intersectionality researchers (particularly those of us who dwell in academia) could invest decades developing and fine-tuning intersectional methodologies and methods, and empirically documenting inequities, only to lose sight about intersectionality’s true goal: equity and social justice, not research for the sake of research.
How to use FAIR?
Well, the first and most obvious step is to read the article about FAIR in the Annual Review of Public Health thoroughly. It may take multiple reads. Thereafter, I recommend that you proceed with FAIR chronologically and sequentially.
Start with intersectional reflexivity (Activity 1). Make time to introspect and discuss the implications of this first activity for you and your research team, but don’t stop there. Take action. Develop an intersectional reflexivity plan that addresses the concerns most relevant to your research topic and team. As for prioritizing equitable community-engaged and community-led research (Activity 2), many SBS health equity researchers, particularly those who hail from public health, learn that community-based or community-based participatory research (CBPR) is important, but have few opportunities to consider the power imbalances inherent to the academic-community research partnership endeavor, take practical steps to reduce those barriers, and why community-led research equitable partnerships are so vital to effective to social justice and health equity research projects. The action step here is to read the cited literature about community-engaged and led partnerships (and things to avoid) and then initiate conversations with local community-based organizations (CBO) about opportunities for collaboration and what an equitable partnership would look like (and put it in writing).
Activities 3 (Conceptualize research pursuant to intersectionality’s core themes), 4 (Design using methodologies and methods aligned with intersectionality’s core themes), and 5 (Analyze and interpret in sync with intersectionality’s core themes and ethics of representation) direct researchers to do these research activities in alignment with core themes of intersectionality. For each, I recommend that you read the primary classic and contemporary theoretical literature that I cite in the article. Thereafter, I recommend that you read the cited methodological literature to ensure that you and your team are grounded in basic knowledge about what intersectionality and its core tenets, and documented best methodological practices to apply (and avoid) in qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods intersectionality SBS research.
Activity 6 (Link intersectionality research to transformative action) is the beating heart of FAIR. Initially, I considered looping Activity 6 back to Activities 1 and 2 but figured it would unnecessarily complicate FAIR. This compromise to simplicity notwithstanding, I hope it is evident how Activity 1’s intersectional reflexivity introspection (e.g., “Why are we doing this research? How can we develop a rigorous research project that will be transformative for the participants that we want this project to benefit? What steps do we need to take to ensure that the participants benefit more from this research than the researchers?) could prompt a research team to think about transformative projects that could stem from the research at the research conceptualization stage, not just at the end of the research.
Similarly, Activity 6 relates to Activity 2 (Prioritize equitable community-engaged and community-led research). Research led or driven by the communities most affected by the research problem is more likely to be focused on solving the research problem, and less likely to prioritize collateral benefits such enhancing the researcher’s career advancement, peer-reviewed publications, or future grant proposals.
Many communities are very interested in, have considerable experience and expertise with action-based initiatives be it policy (e.g., how to translate empirical evidence to local, state, tribal, or federal policy makers in a way that increase the chances of uptake); are eager to communicate findings of research back to their communities using mediums and modalities (e.g., spoken word, podcasts, social media) that most resonate with community members, to which communities have access (e.g., resources not locked behind a paywall), and that they trust. Thus, I can readily envision how Activity 2 could prompt a researcher or research team to visit Activity 6 at the start of a research project, not just the end. The start is also best because it provides opportunities to budget for and write the transformative activities into the grant proposal, rather than waiting for the end of the project when time or money has ended.
As FAIR Travels
I’m grateful to the members of the Intersectionality Training Institute’s Intersectionality Summer Intensive 2023, 2024 and 2025 cohorts who were the first to see FAIR in its infancy. Collectively, their questions, feedback, and insights have informed FAIR’s refinement to its current incarnation.
More than simply read, FAIR is meant to be applied (the word Applied in the title is intentional). I intend FAIR to be useful to people who do intersectionality research, and those who consume and evaluate it.
I’m excited to share FAIR with a broader audience beyond the Intersectionality Summer Intensive, and curious to learn about its travels. How have you used FAIR? How do you envision that you might use it? What works? What doesn’t? What questions remain about FAIR?
If you’re a member of our Intersectionality Collective (if not, what are you waiting for?), the FAIR space is the place to share your questions, comments and experiences about using FAIR. Let’s chat about it.
- January 12, 2026
Learn More...
ISI 2026 will have a highly interactive session dedicated to FAIR. If you want to learn about applying FAIR in person, with Dr. Bowleg, Register for the intensive.
August's Intersectionality Research Salon is dedicated to FAIR. Join Dr. Lisa Bowleg and Shawnika Hull, PhD as they discuss the framework and its applications. The event is free. Registrations are required. Come along and ask your FAIR questions!
Join our FAIR virtual training in October. This two hour Friday, October 30th session invites you to learn about the Framework directly from Dr. Lisa Bowleg.