https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61690-6.pdf

Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health

The past decade has witnessed remarkable evolution within qualitative health research as scholars have moved beyond initial adherence to the specific methods of phenomenology, grounded theory, and ethnography to develop methods more responsive to the experience-based questions of interest to a practice-based discipline. Interpretive description (Thorne, Reimer Kirkham, & MacDonald-Emes, 1997) is an inductive analytic approaches designed to create ways of understanding clinical phenomena that yield applications implications. In this article, we further develop our understanding of this methodological alternative by elaborating on the objective and mechanisms of its analytic processes and by expanding our consideration of its interpretive products.

/pdf/the-analytic-challenge-in-interpretive-description-55kytca9k4.pdf

The Analytic Challenge in Interpretive Description

Come take a walk with me: the "go-along" interview as a novel method for studying the implications of place for health and well-being.

Social environments and experiences get under the skin early in life in ways that affect the course of human development. Because most factors associated with early child development are a function of socio-economic status, differences in early child development form a socio-economic gradient. We are now learning how, when, and by what means early experiences influence key biological systems over the long term to produce gradients: a process known as biological embedding. Opportunities for biological embedding are tethered closely to sensitive periods in the development of neural circuitry. Epigenetic regulation is the best example of operating principles relevant to biological embedding. We are now in a position to ask how early childhood environments work together with genetic variation and epigenetic regulation to generate socially partitioned developmental trajectories with impact on health across the life course.

/pdf/how-experience-gets-under-the-skin-to-create-gradients-in-47exa9v5y6.pdf

How experience gets under the skin to create gradients in developmental health.

Ricardo Lagos Escobar is the former President of Chile, and former Education Minister and Minister of Public Works. An economist and lawyer by qualification, he also worked as an economist for the United Nations. Alireza Marandi is Professor of Pediatrics at Shaheed Beheshti University, Islamic Republic of Iran. He is former two-term Minister of Health (and Medical Education). In addition, he served as Deputy Minister and Advisor to the Minister. He was recently elected to be a member of the Iranian Parliament.

http://epi2008.tempsite.ws/apresentacoes/CONFERENCIA%2023_09_11h45_pdf/Michael%20Marmot.pdf

Closing the gap in a generation

Qualitative research studies have demonstrated that very young children can provide important insights into their daily lives and health experiences. Despite the shift to include children's perspectives in research and document principles related to good data collection with children, there has not been a parallel move within the scholarly community to lay bare the practical challenges inherent in conducting interviews with children. In this article, the authors consider the degree to which well-known standards for qualitative research apply to research interviews with young children. They make practical recommendations that build on existing theoretical work about the conduct of qualitative interviews with young children.

Interviewing Young Children: Explicating Our Practices and Dilemmas

Final Report for the World Health Organizationâ?Ts Commission on the Social Determinants of Health

Early child development: a powerful equalizer

Many women who stop smoking during pregnancy relapse soon after the birth of their infants. Using narrative research, experiences of smoking relapse were explored using interviews with 27 postpartum women. The stories of relapse were analyzed to identify important components, paying attention to commonalities, differences, and areas of emphasis. Five general story lines were identified: (1) controlling one's smoking (starting with a “puff” and consciously restricting the amount smoked); (2) being vulnerable to smoking (relapsing because of an inability to resist cigarettes); (3) nostalgia for one's former self (relapsing to recapture feelings of freedom and happier times); (4) smoking for relief (relapsing to manage emotions and stress); and (5) never really having quit (relapsing because they did not quit for themselves). The findings of this study provide support for the claim that the experiences of smoking cessation and relapse among postpartum women may be unique and, consequently, may require specialized intervention. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Res Nurs Health 23:126–134, 2000

Narratives of smoking relapse: the stories of postpartum women

A good start in life is the key to reducing health and social inequalities in society. Clyde Hertzman and colleagues argue that governments in rich and poor countries should be investing more in programmes to support early child development

/pdf/bucking-the-inequality-gradient-through-early-child-as3ftc552s.pdf

Bucking the inequality gradient through early child development

Public interest in child custody and access has intensified under the guise of gender neutrality and without adequate attention to gender based violence. A study of formal systems’ responses to abuse by intimate partners identified child custody and access as a central issue. Interviews with women revealed that upon leaving abusive partners, women’s work involved the contradictory requirements of preserving the children’s relationships with, yet protecting them from, their fathers. Interviews with service providers and document analysis illustrated how certain practices, policies and ideologies create and sustain these requirements. Findings illustrate that gender analysis and accounting for violence in custody and access practice are necessary to the safety of women and children.

http://www.atira.bc.ca/AdvancingHealthCareWorkshop/IfIKilledYou.pdf

Lori G. Irwin

Papers

Interviewing Young Children: Explicating Our Practices and Dilemmas

Early child development: a powerful equalizer

Narratives of smoking relapse: the stories of postpartum women

Bucking the inequality gradient through early child development

If i killed you, i'd get the kids: Women's survival and protection work with child custody and access in the context of woman abuse