Global Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Public Organization Review -     

Reviewing challenges and the future for qualitative interviewing

ABSTRACT

In this article, we consider challenges for the existence and practice of qualitative research interviews. We review key features of qualitative interviewing, in particular the debate over the radical critique of interviewing and the nature of the data it generates, to set the scene for our arguments about the current standing and future prognosis for the method of generating data and the technologies that enable this. We look at qualitative interviewing in the context of the political project of neoliberalism and the regime of austerity associated with it, and the linked turn to what is known as ‘big data’, a feature of digital technological developments in garnering data. Qualitative researchers using interview methods have been creative in working with and resisting features of neoliberal austerity pragmatically and politically, and we provide some examples. We also consider an epistemological challenge and resistance from outside of the dominant framework – interviewing in indigenous methodologies. We argue that it is the relationship between the interview as a method of data generation for research and the ways of knowing about the world, that is the epistemology that the interview-based research proceeds from, that is crucial in considering the potentials for the method’s practice.     

If My Blood Pressure Is High,Do I Take It to Heart? Behavioral Effects of Biomarker Collection in the Health and Retirement Study

Starting in 2006, respondents in the biennial U.S. Health and Retirement Study were asked to submit biomarkers every other wave and were notified of several results. Rates of undiagnosed high blood pressure and diabetes according to these biomarkers were 1.5 % and 0.7 %, respectively. An intent-to-treat analysis suggests that collection and notification had small effects on the average respondent and may have reduced health care utilization. Among respondents who received notification of potentially dangerous biomarker levels, subsequent rates of new diagnosis and associated pharmaceutical usage increased by 20 to 40 percentage points, an order of magnitude above baseline. High blood glucose A1C was associated with a 2.2 % drop in weight and an increase in exercise among respondents without a previous diagnosis of diabetes. Notifications appear also to have altered health behaviors by spouses, suggesting household responses to health maintenance. Biomarker collection seems to have altered circumstances for an interesting minority of HRS respondents.     

Negative (But Not Positive) Parenting Interacts with Infant Negative Affect to Predict Infant Approach: Evidence of Diathesis‐Stress

Temperament by parenting interactions may reflect that individuals with greater risk are more likely to experience negative outcomes in adverse contexts (diathesis‐stress) or that these individuals are more susceptible to contextual influences in a “for better or for worse” pattern (differential susceptibility). Although such interactions have been identified for a variety of child outcomes, prior research has not examined approach characteristics—excitement and approach toward pleasurable activities—in the first year of life. Therefore, this study investigated whether 6‐month maternal reported infant negative affect—a phenotypic marker of risk/susceptibility—interacted with 8‐month observed parenting behaviors (positive parenting, negative parenting) to predict 12‐month infant behavioral approach. Based on a sample of mothers and their infants (N = 150), results indicated that negative parenting was inversely associated with subsequent approach for infants with high, but not low, levels of negative affect. Similar results did not occur regarding positive parenting. These findings better fit a diathesis‐stress model rather than a differential susceptibility model. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

Ambiguity and price competition

Theory and Decision - There are few models of price competition in a homogeneous-good market which permit general asymmetries of information amongst the sellers. This work studies a price game with...     

Using a capabilities approach to understand poverty and social exclusion of psychiatric survivors

The purpose of this project is to better understand poverty and social exclusion of psychiatric survivors using a capabilities approach to social justice as part of a larger mixed-methods longitudinal study (N=380) in Ontario, Canada. Using thematic coding, four themes emerged: poverty, ‘You just try to survive’; stigma, ‘People treat you like trash’; belonging, ‘You feel like you don’t belong’; and shared concern and advocacy, ‘Everyone deserves housing’. This analysis provides a deeper understanding of poverty and other social determinants of experiences of psychiatric survivors, including the synergism of poverty and social exclusion.     

Emotional Intimacy Power Predicts Different Sexual Experiences for Men and Women

Those who are more emotionally invested in relationships have less power than their partners. Furthermore, less powerful individuals may attempt to equalize power imbalances by offering rewards to their partner and using sex and condom use as exchange resources. Australian young adults reported their condom use and pressured sex experiences in both romantic (n = 708) and casual (n = 118) relationships. Results showed that greater power (lower relative emotional investment) predicted more condom use among those wanting to use condoms. In casual relationships, an interaction with gender showed that women in particular used condoms more when they had more power. Power also interacted with gender for pressured sex and, unexpectedly, men who had more power experienced more pressured sex. The possibility that condom use and pressured sex have different meanings for men and women is explored.