PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH IN PUBLIC HEALTH
FROM APRIL 20 TO APRIL 22, 2018

DIRECTOR: Carlos Álvarez-Dardet Díaz
                     University of Alicante

FACULTY:

• Dr. Carlos Álvarez-Dardet Díaz. University of Alicante
• DR. Arnd Hofmeister. Liverpool University

COURSE CONTENT

While "evidence based practice" is a common request for health promotion and public health interventions, it is often "practice based evidence" which is missing for sustainable change. Participatory Action Research (PAR) is an approach or research paradigm which fills this gap. Instead of controlling and regulating the influence of communities on the interventions, it systematically integrates the participants in the process of determining the needs, planning the intervention, implementation and evaluation. However, this has several theoretical, methodological, and practical implications which need to be taken into consideration.

PAR aims at increasing the ownership of communities on the social determinants of their health by their participation in research and intervention. PAR does not research "what is" but "how can we become". Doing PAR means being involved with communities and not just observing them. This requires substantial reflections about oneself as a whole person, one's own positionality. In this workshop we start this journey with reflecting our own positionalities. Then we follow the public health action cycle and experience and discuss the implications of fully participation of participants’ impacts on the different steps.

PAR is a lively and engaging approach. This will be reflected in the way how we will work over the 2 days. We will share, try, and experience different approaches, strategies and methods. If you have own projects and ideas, it is very much welcomed to discuss them in the course.

Working language is English, but we expect less perfection and more enthusiasm and the willingness to get involved

FRIDAY 20

15.00-17.30        1. section:  Foundational assumptions of PAR and other public health research paradigms (PAR in feminist theory and community development - avoiding dominance and domination; logic of research vs. logic of practice (Bourdieu) - mediating expectations; are we talking about the same things - discussing with experts and lays)

17.30-20.00        2. Section: Collaboratively developing "Research and Intervention Designs":  Who belongs to the PAR project, stakeholder inclusion and exclusion; defining problems and assets, formulating "Research Questions"; sampling strategies)

SATURDAY 21

9.00-11.30           3.Section: Methods and technics of data collection: survey feedback, activating interviewing, open space, photo voice, experiencing and reflecting the use of tools

11.30-13.00        4. Section: Discussing results. How to analyse, present and communicate results with and to participants/communities?

15.00-17.00        5. Section: Ethics &Rigour in PAR

17.00-20.30        Examples from participants, the way ahead

SUNDAY 22

10.00-15.00        Field visit