Making a Difference: Participatory Health Research With Unemployed Citizens and Policymakers

Abstract

Qualitative researchers are more and more keen to have social impact and make their research actionable. Participatory health research (PHR) involves people who live in vulnerable situations and fosters collaboration with other stakeholders, including policymakers, to improve the health and well-being of those whose lives are at stake. People who it concerns are engaged in every step of the research process of PHR to make a difference and strive for social change. Qualitative and elicitation methods are often the primary source of data gathering in PHR, and an arts-based approach is a powerful way to engage a salient audience, such as policymakers. This article provides a thick description of a PHR study aiming to create a learning platform for change in service delivery for unemployed people in order to better meet their needs.

What Patients Prioritize for Research to Improve Their Lives and How Their Priorities Get Dismissed again

“…They took responsibility for tying a certain topic to the scope of a funding agency. In the cases of assistive technology and meaningful participation, this was successful [54]. In the other instances, the facilitators looked for opportunities, but failed (thus far) to find resources to study the topics put on the agenda by patients.…”

‘Follow the dog’ – Creating arts-based, ­supportive and relational spaces to facilitate in a ­purposeful discovery of knowledge

“…For starters, arts are seen as an exceptionally good way to express and give meaning to worries and emotions (Groot et al, 2020;Van Heijst et al, 2019;Weerman & Abma, 2018). They can give expression to ambivalent meanings and the complexity of situations.…”

“…The creative methods bring a broader pallet of knowledge that can inspire social change (Woodgate et al, 2017;Leavy, 2020). Arts-based framing of complex and ambivalent social situations can generate insights that go beyond the rational-cognitive way (Groot et al, 2020). As Vaart and colleagues (2018) mention, creative methods can bring a 'spark among community members to engage in further action and contribute to the community's resilience'.…”

Boundary Objects: Engaging and Bridging Needs of People in Participatory Research by Arts-Based Methods

“…In a study about the service delivery of the municipality, a group of people who were unemployed created different artworks about their experiences of being poor and unemployed [30,31]. One of them created a performance with a monologue.…”