Researchers

Nick Emmel, Adam Sales, Kahryn Hughes
University of Leeds
Joanne Greenhalgh, University of Salford

1 April 2003 31 March 2005

Context

Access to the socially excluded is problematic for health and social care planners and providers. Research suggests there are 'extra-excluded' not reachable through conventional recruitment methods.

Programmes to address inequalities in health invariably do not include the views of the socially excluded in planning and implementation.

Aims and objectives

• Review existing approaches to identifying and recruiting socially excluded individuals/groups/networks;
• Develop and apply innovative recruitment methods to include the 'extra-excluded' and evaluate the use of these recruitment methods with the research participants;
• Explore the methodological implications of this new knowledge to research with socially excluded groups;
• Use innovative methods to elicit lay accounts of social exclusion;
• Consider the theoretical consequences and additions lay accounts can provide for understanding social exclusion;
• Evaluate the utility of all methods generated with health and social care providers addressing inequalities in health.

Methodological aspects of importance

This study involves the implementation of an iterative methodological strategy combining method development, knowledge generation, and identification of the dimensions of social exclusion.

It will produce methodological advances in:

• the recruitment of socially excluded individuals / networks / communities
• use of qualitative methods to explore the dynamics and experience of social exclusion in relation to life-events and policy development
• evaluative insights for policy makers addressing social exclusion and inequalities in health

Research Design

Finding:

• thematic literature review
• identification of preliminary research groups (building on existing networks)
• method development
• examining dimensions of exclusion

Defining:

• networking and identifying additional groups
• in-depth interviews: life-history techniques and the cognitive interview
• analyses: discourse analysis and content analysis

Developing

• developing strategies to evaluate the utility of recruitment methods
• developing evaluation criteria of methods
• evaluate usefulness of knowledge for health and social care decision-making

Outputs

• Dissemination to health and social care policy makers;
• Diffusion to research participants;
• Web-based resource;
• Reports, papers for peer reviewed journals and professional journals;
• Conference presentations and seminars;
• Methodological monographs.