The GoAlong Interview for Studying the Implications of Place for Health and WellBeing

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The Go-Along Interview for Studying the
Implications of Place for Health and Well-Being

• Richard M. Carpiano, Ph.D., M.A., M.P.H.
• Assistant Professor
• Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research
  Scholar
• Department of Sociology
• University of British Columbia
• carpiano_at_interchange.ubc.ca

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Acknowledgments

• Brian C. Kelly, Purdue University
• Margarethe Kusenbach, University of South Florida
• Sara Shostak, Brandeis University
• University of Wisconsin Health Society Scholars
  Seed Grant Program

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Roadmap

• Describe the purpose and types of go-alongs and
  their implementation
• Discuss its advantages for studying place effects
  on health and how it may facilitate
  understandings of
• Local knowledge
• Social physical context
• Consider the methods strengths limitations for
  public health research
• Discuss how go-alongs may be used with other
  qualitative quantitative methods

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Background

• Research on place health has exploded in the
  past few years
• Yet a significant amount of research relies upon
  census or other administrative measures based on
  
• simple aggregation of individual characteristics
• global indices (e.g., area deprivation)
• When used alone, are insufficient for
  understanding the many ways places may matter for
  health well-being. (Weden et al., 2008 Cummins
  et al., 2005 Frohlich et al., 2002)

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Qualitative research on place health becoming
more prevalent

• Particularly due to researchers needs to
• Study local areas with specific social, cultural,
  or historical contexts (Cattell, 2001 Altschuler
  et al., 2004)
• Understand facets of local contexts for which
  survey methods are limited in measuring (Frohlich
  et al., 2001)
• Develop and refine theories that are grounded in
  the lived experiences of people who inhabit these
  contexts (Cummins et al., 2007 Airey, 2003)
• Generate knowledge that relies on a theoretically
  and methodologically holistic evidence base
  (Carpiano Daley, 2006a 2006b Carpiano, 2007)

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Go-Along is Consistent with These Needs

• A qualitative interviewing technique with great
  utilityalone or with other methodsfor improving
  understanding of peoples experiences of
  residential (or other) context
• Context refers to a relational perspective on
  place space that aims to consider the health
  implications of
• Neighborhood environment(s) and
• Larger local area in which a neighborhood may be
  part
• An action space where people move about in
  conducting their activities or practices (Cummins
  et al., 2007)

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The Go-Along

• An in-depth qualitative interview method
• Conducted by researchers accompanying individual
  informants on outings in their familiar
  environments
• Can be conducted as a
• Walk-along conducted via walking with a
  participant
• Ride-along conducted via driving
• Mixed form combining the former 2 types
  (Kusenbach, 2003)

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The Go-Along Researcher

• Interviews a participant while receiving a tour
  of her/his neighborhood or other local context
• Is walked through peoples lived experiences of
  the neighborhood
• Through asking questions observing, is able to
  examine the participants
• Experiences
• Interpretations
• Practices within this environment

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Reflects many sociological theoretical approaches

• Max Weber
• Intrepretive sociology and Verstehen
• Georg Simmel
• Relational perspectives on space as a context for
  individual group action
• Interactionism Phenomenology
• Direct and indirect social experiences
• Creation/maintenance of intersubjectivity
• Ethnomethodology
• Understanding methods people employ in navigating
  maintaining a sense of order in various
  contexts

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Prior Uses of Go-Alongs

• Tough to find studies that explicitly
  describe/use the go-along
• 3 great examples
• Urban planner Kevin Lynch (1960)
• How city residents interpret environmental images
  in their daily activities
• Social Critic Jonathan Kozol (1995)
• How poor children in the Bronx, NY interpret
  navigate social and physical neighborhood hazards
  
• Sociologist Margarethe Kusenbach (2003)
• Ethnography of Hollywood neighborhoods

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My Own Go-Along Experiences

• Using walk-alongs in studying social capital in 2
  Milwaukee, WI neighborhoods
• Both predominantly African American
• But socioeconomically contrasted one primarily
  disadvantaged another significantly more
  affluent
• Focus on residents social capital
• the aggregate of actual or potential resources
  linked to possession of a group (Bourdieu,
  1986)

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My Own Go-Along Experiences (contd)

• Study aimed to explore
• What residents identify as neighborhood-based
  resources
• How residents access (or are restricted from
  accessing) these resources
• The implications of these network-based resources
  for residents health and well-being
• Used other methods as well
• Field observations of local areas community
  meetings
• Standard in-depth (sit-down) interviews with
  residents service providers
• Background survey for residents

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My Own Go-Along Experiences (contd)

• Substantial focus of the interviews concerned
• Local physical and socioeconomic problems that
  impacted personal and collective quality of life
• e.g., crime, housing maintenance/repair, city tax
  policies, and gentrification
• How social capital was used to address these
  problems
• I needed to understand how residents perceived
  problems
• Walk-alongs offered a unique way to gather such
  data.

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Benefits of the Go-Along Method for Studying
Place and Health

• Draws from the strengths of other qualitative
  methods
• Making it a useful hybrid method for studying
  place and health.
• Highly flexible method that can be tailored to
  the needs of a particular research project

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Relationship to Other Qualitative Methods

• The go-along draws uponand complements2 other
  qualitative methods common in place health
  research
• Simultaneously takes advantage of each methods
  strengths, while using both to compensate for
  each others limitations

Field Observation
Interviewing
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Field Observation

• Refers to a researcher entering into a natural
  setting to observe (and ultimately learn about)
  the social life of an environment (Schatzman
  Strauss, 1973 Emerson et al., 1995)

• Strengths
• Provides natural way for the researcher to become
  acclimated with a particular locality
• Raise research questions in an inductive manner
• Observe phenomena that may often escape awareness
  of people inhabiting a particular setting
  (Patton, 2002 Berg, 1998)

• Limitations
• Limited by the researchers own interpretive
  framework
• Limited in examining residents perceptions and
  experiences of the environment (Patton, 2002
  Kusenbach, 2003)

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For example

• Field observation allowed me to observe (and
  experience) features of the local area
• including resources and hazards
• But insufficient for providing insights about how
  residents interpreted and made use of (or did not
  use) their action spaceparticularly in terms
  of social capital.
• What places and situations were interpreted by
  residents as safe or dangerous and why?
• Where do residents regularly meet and interact?

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(Sit-Down) Interviews

• Refers to conversation with a purpose to gather
  information (Berg, 1998).
• Typically done in a sit-down format (e.g.,
  restaurant, living room)

• Strengths
• Ideal for exploring peoples
• Biographies
• Perceptions of self, others, and place

• Limitations
• Participants may more readily access salient
  features of their lives vs. discussing the
  contexts in which their lives play out
• Discourages context-sensitive reactions of the
  interviewer interviewee (Kusenbach, 2003
  Schatzman Strauss, 1973)

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For example

• Useful for obtaining data about concerns of
  safety, protection, and fear of being harmed
  during outdoor activities
• But indoorsremoved from the experience of the
  location
• Difficult to gain adequate appreciation of
  peoples experiences about these dangers
  (severity, locations, ramifications)
• For example, what strategies and navigation were
  used by one resident who walks his dog every day?

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Combining Field Observation and Interviewing

• The go-along is a hybrid of field observation and
  interviewing
• Researchers learn from the respondent in terms
  of
• Ideas and perspectives
• Experiences
• Likewise, go-along allows a more inclusive
  process
• Respondent becomes more of a participant in the
  interview less a subject being interviewed

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Go-Along Interview Format
2 approaches that can be used either separately
or jointly

• Open-Ended
• providing participants with little direction
• and/or occasionally pointing to features of the
  environment to hear ones thoughts
• (see Lynch, 1960 Kusenbach, 2003)

• Semi-Structured
• Using some prepared questions to guide the
  discussion
• potentially more conversational in nature

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Strengths of the Go-Along Interview for Public
Health Research

• Rapport Builder
• Gaining entrée to the community
• advantageous in places where low trust of
  strangers exists
• being introduced by the participant to someone
  else helps establish some legitimacy with others
• Rapport with participants during interview
• Personal and Community Empowerment
• Tour guide and conversational nature can help
  stimulate awareness of local issues
• Facilitates Recruitment of Participants
• offers way to recruit a more heterogeneous sample

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Limitations of the Go-Along for Public Health
Research

• Still possesses limitations that must be
  considered relative to other methods for studying
  a particular
• Research question
• Situation/context
• These limitations are
• Practical
• Ethical
• Epistemological

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Mother Nature

• Weather can present difficulties (cold or hot)
• My experience Wisconsin winters are cold and
  snowy
• (But I confess, a weak excuse) I missed a good
  opportunity to collect important data
• How do the lone elderly interact with others when
  snow/cold limit mobility?

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Time of Day Conducting the Go-Along

• The type and frequency of social activity may
  differ
• In different locations within a community
• Throughout the course of the day
• Not necessarily a limitation
• But residents often only available to talk at
  certain times of the day
• E.g., times when
• The neighborhood may be quiet or busy
• Walking outside is simply unsafe

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Safety for Participant Researcher

• Always important to consider
• Especially for places with violent crime drug
  activity
• Residents may be fearful of repercussions from
  reporting drug or other crime to the police
• My experience Walking at dusk with a resident
  pointing out aspects of the neighborhood to me (a
  white male in early 30s with short hair)
• Is that a cop or a DA office member s/hes
  talking to?

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Analytic Issues

• Utility of the data hinges on adequate location
  info to situate and ground the interview
• Participants often use vague language in
  describing the environment
• Those houses over there or
• That street down there
• During the go-along, researcher needs to take
  note of specific locations or landmarks
  encountered

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Complementarity with Other Methods

• Photovoice
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) link
  go-along data to corresponding map coordinates
• Focus groups A group go-along may provide a
  way to generate discussion among several people
  on an outing
• Residents only
• Residents other community stakeholders
• Residents policymakers
• Also a teaching tool Can accommodate a
  researcher and a student trainee

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Conclusion

• The go-along is a unique way of obtaining
  contextually-based information about a location
• Can be used
• To assess features and processes of local area
  contexts for which surveys and census data are
  insufficient
• In developing more refined theories of place and
  health grounded in peoples lived experiences
• As a means of participatory research that may
  further invest the researcher in the community
  and the community in the research
• Ultimately, can aid efforts to build a strong
  evidence base on place health and inform policy

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Questions/Comments?
carpiano_at_interchange.ubc.ca