Ramírez Denise Moreno, Sachs Ashby Lavelle, Ekenga Christine C
Department of Community, Environment and Policy, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), Barcelona, Spain.
J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2024 Aug 23. doi: 10.1038/s41370-024-00707-5.
Addressing complex environmental health challenges necessitates the integration of multiple research methodologies to fully understand the social, economic, and health impacts of exposure to environmental hazards. Qualitative and mixed methods (QMM) are vital in uncovering the sociocultural dynamics that influence people's interactions with their environment and subsequent health-related outcomes. QMM has the potential to reveal insights that quantitative methods might overlook. However, QMM approaches have been underutilized in exposure science, with less than 1% of the studies published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology (JESEE) from 2003 to 2023 employing these methods. JESEE studies that utilized QMM have enhanced exposure assessment, explored risk perceptions, and evaluated the impact of interventions, particularly among historically marginalized populations. QMM approaches have addressed gaps in traditional exposure assessment by allowing researchers to capture nuanced perspectives often missed by quantitative analyses, especially in understanding the lived experiences of affected communities. Exposure scientists are encouraged to adopt QMM to advance more comprehensive and inclusive approaches to studying and mitigating environmental risks. Fostering interdisciplinary collaborations that integrate the social sciences can enhance the development of robust, context-sensitive solutions to environmental health challenges.
应对复杂的环境卫生挑战需要整合多种研究方法，以全面了解接触环境危害所带来的社会、经济和健康影响。定性和混合方法（QMM）对于揭示影响人们与环境互动以及随后与健康相关结果的社会文化动态至关重要。QMM有可能揭示定量方法可能忽略的见解。然而，QMM方法在暴露科学中一直未得到充分利用，2003年至2023年发表在《暴露科学与环境流行病学杂志》（JESEE）上的研究中，采用这些方法的不到1%。利用QMM的JESEE研究加强了暴露评估，探索了风险认知，并评估了干预措施的影响，特别是在历史上被边缘化的人群中。QMM方法通过让研究人员捕捉定量分析常常遗漏的细微差别，特别是在理解受影响社区的生活经历方面，弥补了传统暴露评估的不足。鼓励暴露科学家采用QMM，以推进更全面、更具包容性的方法来研究和减轻环境风险。促进整合社会科学的跨学科合作，可以加强针对环境卫生挑战制定稳健、因地制宜的解决方案。
