Participatory Qualitative Research Methodologies in Health: A Review

Participatory Qualitative Research Methodologies in Health (Higgenbottom & Liamputtong, 2015) sounds like a textbook, but delightfully is instead a collection of topical essays with the unifying aim of exploring ways to engage marginalized people in health research. The editors used this approach to create a text in which the reader finds both basic guidance in designing and executing participatory studies, and thoughtful examinations of the ethical and practical issues of research partnerships with marginalized or vulnerable people. Each chapter provides a concise guide to the conceptual, ethical, and logistical realities of executing participatory research methods by study stage or within specific health-related contexts, and provides a bibliography of further reading for those wishing to delve further. Chapters were written by experts hailing primarily from Canada and thus many of the illustrative examples used in the text reflect Canadian populations or health issues. As an American researcher, this turned out to be quite helpful in an unexpected way: the inclusion of examples quite foreign to me only served to underscore the value of methods specifically intended to help outsiders comprehend the perspectives of a group to which they do not belong. Higgenbottom and Liamputtong co-wrote the introductory chapter outlining the history of participatory research (PR), providing an overview of the principal methodologies, and discussing the most important question: why do it? This question becomes a refrain throughout the book, and is an important consideration in light of the editors' critical observation that PR requires the researcher establish "credible and trusting relationships." Building these relationships can be difficult and time-consuming when people's health or access to health care is at stake. These realities are often at odds with the priorities of health research sponsors who typically want quick results. The authors of other chapters pick up and explore these themes, offering both conceptual guidance and practical advice for addressing and resolving these issues. The first half of the book is organized essentially as a text book, with chapters addressing the theoretical underpinnings of PR, study design, managing and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions. The remaining chapters focus on a variety of specialized topics, such as PR with youth or older people, or the use of communication technologies in PR. There is also a chapter exploring the relationships between PR, engaged scholarship, and knowledge transfer. These chapters are particularly useful for their explication of how concepts like "respect" and "trust" can encompass quite different territory depending on the people with whom you are engaging. Similarly, researcher bias can be influenced differently by different participant groups. For example, a researcher may exhibit bias when working with youth by changing their natural language into words that are more familiar or palatable to funders or stakeholder audiences. Most chapters include illustrative case studies that help the reader see how methods play out "in the real world" and provide a set of practical tips for executing PR. In fact, many tips are actually new information not reflected in the text itself. The chapter devoted to exploring the ethical considerations of PR is particularly near and dear to my heart. It is a topic of critical importance that often receives little attention in health research publications. Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, the authors note, can be both difficult to obtain and also insufficient for purpose: IRB oversight is based on the assumption that research questions and designs can be fully articulated in advance and that informed consent is best managed through a legal form. In PR, research is co-constructed and emerges from the relationships that are built over time. …