Special Issue of Intervention - call for papers is attached to this message
Annemarie ter Veen
Please find attached the PDF file with the formal call for papers for the special edition of "Intervention" that Wietse mentioned earlier.
Annemarie
Willem van de Put
Thanks for this! Let me just bring forward an issue I thought fitting for a Friday-night: this call calls for examples of applied research, and specifies examples ‘in which qualitative and quantitative methods are combined’. Perhaps this google instrument is an appropriate place to point at what I find a lingering, nagging & confusing issue that keeps popping up around the use of concepts in this sentence. In everyday NGO life I keep finding examples of how the word ‘method’ as it is used in here is confused with ‘research’ itself. We know that there is no research of any applicable interest that can be either qualitative or quantitative. The issue is, I think, about how to work with qualitative and quantitative data. It may be too obvious to mention, but the danger is real in two ways: (1) the methodology toolbox for research in our field is lopsided towards quantitative instruments, which poses problems that are as serious as they are seriously underestimated (e.g. translated, “validated” self-reporting-style questionnaires used for illiterate populations), and (2) the wording itself hints at a “biomedical methodological” bias, present within the field asking for examples that may be relevance – examples that may indeed even be more relevant because they transcend this outdated schism.
Best wishes!
Willem van de Put
Vikram Patel
The Movement for Global Mental Health
Join Now!
The Movement for GMH is a global network of individuals and institutions who are committed to furthering the goal of scaling up of evidence-based services for people living with mental disorders and protecting their human rights. Visit the website www.globalmentalhealth.org to find out more about the background and future plans of the Movement. If you agree with the call for action, you can join the Movement and use the website to submit information about yourself; your work; and your organization. You can also search for information about others on the website; over time, we hope the website will become a global repository for information on providing care for people with mental disorders, particularly in low resource settings. Ultimately we aim to ensure that, through a range of activities, the Movement for Global Mental Health takes its place alongside those promoting HIV/AIDS treatment and maternal and child survival, and is identified as one of the great public health successes of our times.
Join Now and become part of this global movement.
Vikram Patel
Professor of International Mental Health &
Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Tropical Medicine
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Address: Sangath Centre, Porvorim, Goa, India 403521
Join the Movement for Global Mental Health on www.globalmentalhealth.org