The journal “Public Health Nursing Vol. 25 No. 4” was written by Terri Rebmann, Ruth Carrico and Judith F. English. It focuses on demarcating the lessons learned by public health professionals from past disasters and resources found to be lacking in previous disasters. The authors undertook to understand what public health professional had learned from dealing with precedent calamities and what steps they would take in case of reoccurrences or other disaster. They diversified their field of study to cover as much ground as possible.
The authors opted to use the qualitative design of study as their research methodology. Qualitative research design aims at gathering in-depth understanding of human behavior and the rationale that governs this behavior. It examines the why’s and how’s of decision making, as well as what’s, where’s and when’s of the research question. It therefore entails study of smaller but focused sample groups rather than larger sample groups. This design is reasonable for this study as it gathers compact information on the research question. The answers given by participants reflect on the general feelings of the larger group. The methodology was therefore relevant to the research.
The need to conduct this study arose as a result of numerous occurrences of disasters. In the recent past we have witnessed an increase in unforeseen disasters. Disease outbreaks have become more rampant with emergence of new strains of diseases. Natural calamities such as the Asian tsunami and the hurricane Katrina also create a need to study the lessons learnt from such disasters. In the late nineties, bioterrorism formed the greatest basis for disaster preparedness. More recently, the attack on America by terrorist on September eleventh offers a rationale to conduct the study. The whole world has experienced disasters that create an influx of casualties thus supporting the need to examine what health officials have learned from these disasters and how well prepared they are to tackle any forthcoming disasters.
The qualitative research technique enlists five underlying assumptions: Axiological assumptions, Methodological assumptions, Rhetorical assumptions, ontological assumptions and Epistemological assumptions, Ontological assumptions are those whose realities are relative. No reality is considered exceedingly true than the other. Epistemological assumption is where conclusions are based on interaction between the investigator and the participants. The researcher’s views may affect the subject’s response. Axiological assumption is when the researcher is candidly passionate about pursuing the research. Typically, there is a burden for the purpose of the research to be value oriented.
Methodological assumption aims at working towards building social setting that are familiarity to the respondents. Techniques here include observations, detailed interviews and in-depth analysis of the data. In Rhetorical assumption, the study is frequently written in the first person, evidence of a passionate researcher. Similarly, this technique has some limitations. The researcher’s bias affects the research design, data collection and data analysis. This technique calls for trust building so that the respondents may feel free to share and the mare presence of the researcher will affect the response of the study group. Finally, the views of the study group may not mirror the perceptions of the larger group.
The most common styles of data collection in qualitative design include; observation, interviews and questionnaires among others. In this case, the researchers opted for questionnaires and interviews. The researchers gathered a group of thirty two participants from the over a thousand attendants of the two thousand and six “Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology Conference” to participate in the study. Participants were put into focus groups whose sessions were audio taped. The analysis process included identifying, coding and categorizing respondents’ responses. Key issues were identified and classified into categories which were further analyzed.
The source of information for this research was the thirty two participants who were carefully selected. The data reflects their views and perspectives. These views are thought to represent the views of the entire public health community world wide. The views have a personal effect on the data as they boarder on the personal experiences of the respondents. The advantages of using qualitative research technique include; detailed assessment of phenomena, examination of complex questions and use of subjective information. It is also not restricted to rigidly definable variables thus allowing for exploration of new areas of study. This in-turn allows researchers to build new theories.
In conclusion, the researchers’ choice of a research technique is impeccable. They execute the design to the detail as described. The quality of data collected is valuable and unbiased since it was collected from diverse respondents. Their analysis is also very elaborate and the results are compelling. This not withstanding, they might have diversified their data further by including the views of the general public in their analysis to avoid bias. The information, though useful, leans more on the experiences of the public health practitioners. Generally, the research is very conclusive and can be considered a success. If their findings are to be implemented, a solution to the question will have been found.
Works Cited
Rebmann, Terri, Ruth Carrico and Judith F. English. "Lessons Public Health Professionals learned frompast disasters." Public Health Nursing Vol. 25 No. 4 (2008): 344–352.
