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Contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in Germany, Canada and the UK

BACKGROUND: Public health researchers are increasingly encouraged to establish international collaborations and to undertake cross-national comparative studies. To-date relatively few such studies have addressed migration, ethnicity and health, but their number is growing. While it is clear that div...

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Autores principales: Salway, Sarah M, Higginbottom, Gina, Reime, Birgit, Bharj, Kuldip K, Chowbey, Punita, Foster, Caroline, Friedrich, Jule, Gerrish, Kate, Mumtaz, Zubia, O'Brien, Beverley
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3146864/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21714893
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-514
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author Salway, Sarah M
Higginbottom, Gina
Reime, Birgit
Bharj, Kuldip K
Chowbey, Punita
Foster, Caroline
Friedrich, Jule
Gerrish, Kate
Mumtaz, Zubia
O'Brien, Beverley
author_facet Salway, Sarah M
Higginbottom, Gina
Reime, Birgit
Bharj, Kuldip K
Chowbey, Punita
Foster, Caroline
Friedrich, Jule
Gerrish, Kate
Mumtaz, Zubia
O'Brien, Beverley
author_sort Salway, Sarah M
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Public health researchers are increasingly encouraged to establish international collaborations and to undertake cross-national comparative studies. To-date relatively few such studies have addressed migration, ethnicity and health, but their number is growing. While it is clear that divergent approaches to such comparative research are emerging, public health researchers have not so far given considered attention to the opportunities and challenges presented by such work. This paper contributes to this debate by drawing on the experience of a recent study focused on maternal health in Canada, Germany and the UK. DISCUSSION: The paper highlights various ways in which cross-national comparative research can potentially enhance the rigour and utility of research into migration, ethnicity and health, including by: forcing researchers to engage in both ideological and methodological critical reflexivity; raising awareness of the socially and historically embedded nature of concepts, methods and generated 'knowledge'; increasing appreciation of the need to situate analyses of health within the wider socio-political setting; helping researchers (and research users) to see familiar issues from new perspectives and find innovative solutions; encouraging researchers to move beyond fixed 'groups' and 'categories' to look at processes of identification, inclusion and exclusion; promoting a multi-level analysis of local, national and global influences on migrant/minority health; and enabling conceptual and methodological development through the exchange of ideas and experience between diverse research teams. At the same time, the paper alerts researchers to potential downsides, including: significant challenges to developing conceptual frameworks that are meaningful across contexts; a tendency to reify concepts and essentialise migrant/minority 'groups' in an effort to harmonize across countries; a danger that analyses are superficial, being restricted to independent country descriptions rather than generating integrated insights; difficulties of balancing the need for meaningful findings at country level and more holistic products; and increased logistical complexity and costs. SUMMARY: In view of these pros and cons, the paper encourages researchers to reflect more on the rationale for, feasibility and likely contribution of proposed cross-national comparative research that engages with migration, ethnicity and health and suggests some principles that could support such reflection.
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spelling pubmed-31468642011-07-31 Contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in Germany, Canada and the UK Salway, Sarah M Higginbottom, Gina Reime, Birgit Bharj, Kuldip K Chowbey, Punita Foster, Caroline Friedrich, Jule Gerrish, Kate Mumtaz, Zubia O'Brien, Beverley BMC Public Health Correspondence BACKGROUND: Public health researchers are increasingly encouraged to establish international collaborations and to undertake cross-national comparative studies. To-date relatively few such studies have addressed migration, ethnicity and health, but their number is growing. While it is clear that divergent approaches to such comparative research are emerging, public health researchers have not so far given considered attention to the opportunities and challenges presented by such work. This paper contributes to this debate by drawing on the experience of a recent study focused on maternal health in Canada, Germany and the UK. DISCUSSION: The paper highlights various ways in which cross-national comparative research can potentially enhance the rigour and utility of research into migration, ethnicity and health, including by: forcing researchers to engage in both ideological and methodological critical reflexivity; raising awareness of the socially and historically embedded nature of concepts, methods and generated 'knowledge'; increasing appreciation of the need to situate analyses of health within the wider socio-political setting; helping researchers (and research users) to see familiar issues from new perspectives and find innovative solutions; encouraging researchers to move beyond fixed 'groups' and 'categories' to look at processes of identification, inclusion and exclusion; promoting a multi-level analysis of local, national and global influences on migrant/minority health; and enabling conceptual and methodological development through the exchange of ideas and experience between diverse research teams. At the same time, the paper alerts researchers to potential downsides, including: significant challenges to developing conceptual frameworks that are meaningful across contexts; a tendency to reify concepts and essentialise migrant/minority 'groups' in an effort to harmonize across countries; a danger that analyses are superficial, being restricted to independent country descriptions rather than generating integrated insights; difficulties of balancing the need for meaningful findings at country level and more holistic products; and increased logistical complexity and costs. SUMMARY: In view of these pros and cons, the paper encourages researchers to reflect more on the rationale for, feasibility and likely contribution of proposed cross-national comparative research that engages with migration, ethnicity and health and suggests some principles that could support such reflection. BioMed Central 2011-06-29 /pmc/articles/PMC3146864/ /pubmed/21714893 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-514 Text en Copyright ©2011 Salway et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Correspondence
Salway, Sarah M
Higginbottom, Gina
Reime, Birgit
Bharj, Kuldip K
Chowbey, Punita
Foster, Caroline
Friedrich, Jule
Gerrish, Kate
Mumtaz, Zubia
O'Brien, Beverley
Contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in Germany, Canada and the UK
title Contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in Germany, Canada and the UK
title_full Contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in Germany, Canada and the UK
title_fullStr Contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in Germany, Canada and the UK
title_full_unstemmed Contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in Germany, Canada and the UK
title_short Contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in Germany, Canada and the UK
title_sort contributions and challenges of cross-national comparative research in migration, ethnicity and health: insights from a preliminary study of maternal health in germany, canada and the uk
topic Correspondence
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3146864/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21714893
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-11-514
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