Exploring Participation and Interaction in a Bottom-Up Health Promotion Program for Migrant Women in Norway

Abstract

In this article, we examine the participation and interactions of migrant women and experts who attended health parties. Based on data from participation observations and semi-structured interviews from participants of health parties, we examine how health parties may be considered an innovative bottom-up community program that could influence how migrant women focus, learn, and discuss health issues as well as interact with health care. Through a qualitative analysis, the article demonstrates two ways of organizing health parties and different approaches to the health expert role, and how this impacts the social setting and interactions of a health party. In the Norwegian setting, migrant women are considered by health authorities to be the most difficult group to reach due to cultural and language barriers. Health parties may represent an alternative for bridging these barriers and may create a useful context for active participation and learning about health for migrant women.

Implementation and dissemination of physical activity-related health competence in vocational nursing training: study protocol for a cluster-randomized controlled intervention trial

“…In contrast, bottom-up approaches emphasize the need that interventions must fit perfectly with the unique conditions of a setting. Accordingly, these types of interventions follow participatory ideas and consistently integrate relevant stakeholder during intervention development and implementation [ 29 , 30 ]. Although there are sufficient theoretical arguments inducing researchers to favor one of these approaches, it is from an empirical perspective merely possible to clearly assign priority to one of two sides.…”