Phelan Helen, Hassan Ahmed, MacFarlane Anne
Irish World Academy of Music and Dance (IWAMD), University of Limerick (UL), Limerick, V94 T9PX, Ireland.
Health Research Institute Supported Participatory Health Research Unit (HRI, PHR Unit), University of Limerick, Limerick, V94 T9PX, Ireland.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2025 May 26;23(1):67. doi: 10.1186/s12961-025-01317-9.
This commentary explores the potential of arts-based research methods, particularly music and singing, to address issues of participatory inequity and the structural bias this creates in health research systems and policies. Focusing on migration as a pressing public health issue in resettlement countries in the Global North, this commentary's objective is to investigate the use of such creative methods as a means of improving migrants' participation in health research, knowledge translation and the development of health policy. In doing so, it challenges the overreliance on cognitively and verbally oriented methods in the Global North, which fail to harness the participatory potential of the whole-body sensorium. Drawing on Palmer et al.'s explanatory theoretical model of change and centralizing the concept of participatory space, it advances this discussion within a participatory health research paradigm. The exploration is further informed by a recent scoping review on the use of music as an arts-based method in migrant health research, as well as two case studies using the Irish World Music Café method. It concludes with the proposal that further exploration of music and singing as mechanisms of change in health research is essential if we are to fully understand whether/how music and singing for participatory space-making may reset the health research agenda, putting meaningful, whole-person engagement at the heart of research to inform systems and policies.
本评论探讨了基于艺术的研究方法，特别是音乐和歌唱，在解决参与不平等问题以及这种不平等在卫生研究系统和政策中造成的结构性偏见方面的潜力。鉴于移民是全球北方重新安置国家中一个紧迫的公共卫生问题，本评论的目的是研究使用此类创新方法作为提高移民参与卫生研究、知识转化和卫生政策制定的一种手段。在此过程中，它对全球北方过度依赖认知和语言导向的方法提出了质疑，这些方法未能充分利用全身感官的参与潜力。借鉴帕尔默等人的变革解释性理论模型，并将参与空间的概念作为核心，它在参与性卫生研究范式内推进了这一讨论。最近一项关于将音乐作为基于艺术的方法用于移民健康研究的范围综述，以及两项使用爱尔兰世界音乐咖啡馆方法的案例研究，为这一探索提供了进一步的参考。它得出的结论是，如果我们要全面理解音乐和歌唱作为参与性空间营造的机制是否/如何能够重新设定卫生研究议程，将有意义的、全身心的参与置于研究核心以指导系统和政策，那么进一步探索音乐和歌唱作为卫生研究中的变革机制至关重要。
