title: Protocol: realist synthesis of the impact of unemployment insurance policies on poverty and health.
abstract: Unemployment insurance is an important social protection policy that buffers unemployed workers against poverty and poor health. Most unemployment insurance studies focus on whether increases in unemployment insurance generosity are predictive of poverty and health outcomes. Less work has used theory-driven approaches to understand and explain how and why unemployment insurance works, for whom, and under what circumstances. Given this, we present a realist synthesis protocol that seeks to unpack how contextual influences trigger relevant mechanisms to generate poverty and health outcomes. In this protocol, we conceptualize unemployment insurance as a key social protection policy; provide a supporting rationale on the need for a realist synthesis; and describe our process on identifying context-mechanism-outcome pattern configurations. Six methodological steps are described: initial theory development, search strategy; selection and appraisal of documents; data extraction; analysis and synthesis process; and presentation and dissemination of revised theory. Our forthcoming realist synthesis will be the first to build and test theory on the intended and unintended outcomes of unemployment insurance policies. Anticipated findings will allow policymakers to move beyond 'black box' approaches to consider 'mechanism-based' explanations that explicate the logic on how and why unemployment insurance matters.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1T8. Electronic address: agnesmmolnar@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Agnes
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Molnar
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1T8; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Health Sciences Building, 400-155 College Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5T 3M7.
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: O'Campo
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1T8.
authors.forename: Edwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1T8. Electronic address: christianemitchell@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1T8; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Health Sciences Building, 400-155 College Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5T 3M7; Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Health Sciences Building, 130-155 College Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5T 3M7.
authors.forename: Carles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Muntaner
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1T8.
authors.forename: Emilie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Renahy
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1T8.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: St John
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, Canada M5B 1T8; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Health Sciences Building, 400-155 College Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5T 3M7; Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Sciences Building, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3C5.
authors.forename: Ketan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shankardass
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D005062:European Union; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000191:economics; D011203:Poverty / Q000517:prevention & control; D011640:Public Policy / Q000191:economics; D064890:Social Determinants of Health / Q000191:economics; D066269:Social Theory; D012946:Social Welfare / Q000191:economics; D014478:Unemployment
keywords: Context; Health; Mechanism; Outcome; Poverty; Protocol; Realist synthesis; Social protection; Unemployment insurance