• explore and discover
• seek depth of understanding
• views social phenomena holistically
• provide insight to the meanings of decisions and actions
• uses interpretive and other open ended methods
• emergent, NOT pre-structured
• iterative, NOT fixed
• involves respondents as active participants in the research process
• defines the researcher as an instrument in the research process

• if you assume that what people define as real is actual real in consequences, than you can uncover multiple persepctives and their implications
• many problems of public health are embedded in cultural contexts
• people who make health related decisions are conditions by their membership and participation in multiple social groups and roles
• many quantitative explorations of public health questions have ended up needin to expand their methodology options to answer difficult questions
  • HOW, WHY, UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES

• derives from anthropologic approach to gaining an understanding of a certain subject by studying it in its context
• often in public health, we want to explain things by reducing it to some objectively observable measures or basic principles
• anthropologists seek to understand the meaning of things (peoples ideas, perceptions, experiences, practices)
• premise is that these can only be understood in their context- so have to look at it from many perspectives

• theoretical foundation for qualitative research methods
• the approach starts with desire to understand meaning of culture
  • culture- system of shared idseas, systems of concepts and rules/meanings that underlie and are expressed in the way humans live (what humans learn, not what they do)
• how we view the world
• shared meanings, and how those shared meanins and beliefs affect and are reflected in actual practices

• insiders viewpoint
• in order to describe how people view their situation and solve their problems, the researcher must become a participant themselves (an instrument of research)
• emphasis on understanding and studying culture in context often requires a broadening of the object of research

• since cultures are diverse and unique, they can only be understood from the insider's viewpoint

• study of medical phenomenon as culture
• broken down as:
  • illness, response t illness
• anything concerning human health

• structural functionalism (early foundation)
• ecological perspective
• political economy model
• transactional model
• cognitive and symbolic approach
• critical anthropology- currently synthesizes all the approaches as complementary and reinforcing

• medicalization
• disease, illness, and sickness
• illness and health as cultural phenomena
• explanatory models (problem origins and solutions)
• illness and etiology classification- internalizing and externalizing beliefs
• theories of illness causation- effective prevention

• a scientific, but tentative statement of relationship among diverse phenomena
• use theory to make sense of world
• to anticipate and understand how people will react to each other and to events
• test of good theory is how well it helps define research problems, design studies, and produce useful results
• very inductive
  • build theory, moving from observations to a theory

• very deductive
  • often begins with theory and looks at hypothesis relationship within it

• perceived susceptibility
• perceived severity
• perceived benefits
• perceived barriers
• triggers to action
• self efficacy
• contextual factors

• precontemplation
• contemplation
• preparation
• action
• maintenance

locus of control

• external locus of control- something else controls situation, so you feel like you cant do anything (ex: fatalism)
• internal locus of control- something within your control (ex: high self efficacy)

• examine relationships between individual and different levels of their environment
• more general approach to designing programs

• observe lived experiences
• allows us to hear voices of people we research
• provide us with EMIC perspective
• exploratory
• helps fill in contextual gaps left by quantitative data
• allows in depth understanding of complex processes and interrelated phenomena

• define problem
• ID appropriate participants
• ID settin where problem occurs
• explore meaning associated with the problem
• document a process
• describe unexpected outcomes
• design measures

• validity- correspondence between what one thinks one is measuring and what they are really measuring
• reliability- likelihood that a measure will repeatedly yield the same results
• generalizability- applicability of study results to a broader group

• what they believe, think, or do
• what people actually do
• what people really think or believe
• the context of all the above

• participant observation
• mapping
• in depth interviews- open-ended, structured, semistructured
• focus group
• rapid assessment
• free listing, pile sorting
• rank ordering
• diaries
• photographs, videos
• videos
• audio-recorded communication
• network or social network analysis