PUBH 8450: Discussion Reply on Qualitative Data Collection Challenges

This discussion post addresses challenges in qualitative data collection within a community health assessment context, specifically focusing on a classmate's posting about community health assessments. The author critiques the classmate's views on the importance of researchers' familiarity with the community and the broadness of the challenges highlighted. The author suggests that familiarity might not be paramount and that the challenge statements should be more specific, such as language disparities. The author also argues that the second challenge is too vague, emphasizing the need for researchers to be well-trained to address data collection and analysis challenges effectively. The post references relevant literature to support the arguments and provides a perspective on improving the approach to community health assessments.

Running head: POSTINGS
Reply to James Green’s posting
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

POSTINGS
There are few points that might not be well agreed upon by me in the posting by my
fellow classmate James Green. For a community health assessment, it is definitely important
to have background knowledge about the community, its health status and the prominent
health issues faced by its people. However, familiarity with the community, that too on a
ground level, might not be too important for the researchers, in my opinion. The challenge
statement highlighted by the classmate is too broad. It should have been limited to particular
aspects such as disparity in the language differences between the community members and
the healthcare professionals, where the proposed solution by the classmate of forming a team
or ensuring the inclusion of members from the community in the research study (Bawah et
al., 2020).
Furthermore, the second challenge highlighted by the classmate is too indefinitive.
Discussion on the proposed methods of data collection and the target aspects of data to be
collected is a critical aspect of any research study, and cannot be highlighted as an issue of a
research study or something that is limited to the conduct of the qualitative study in the
community. It is imperative that the researchers are trained with comprehensive knowledge
regarding the study to be conducted and hence, can be disguised as a solution to the said
challenge (Forsythe et al., 2018).

POSTINGS
References
Bawah, A. A., Kweku, M., Amu, H., Awolu, A., Adjuik, M., Ayanore, M. A., ... & Aku, F.
Y. (2020). Community-Based Health Planning and Services Plus programme in
Ghana: A qualitative study with stakeholders in two Systems Learning Districts on
improving the implementation of primary health care.
Forsythe, L. P., Frank, L. B., Hemphill, R., Tafari, A. T., Szydlowski, V., Lauer, M., ... &
Clauser, S. (2018). Researchers, Patients, and Stakeholders Evaluating Comparative-
Effectiveness Research: A Mixed-Methods Study of the PCORI Reviewer
Experience. Value in Health, 21(10), 1161-1167.