Advocating for a more relational and dynamic model of participation for child researchers

Primary school children participating as researchers has become a moral obligation to meet the goal of children's participation rights. Yet, critical voices rarely question the ethical and practical implications of turning young children into mini-clones of adult researchers. While enabling and constraining aspects of participatory methods and inherent power issues per se are widely discussed, adult researchers still seem to struggle to critically engage with celebratory accounts of children as researchers. In particular, the practical obligations, ethical challenges and tensions that impact on primary school children's research experiences, are underexplored. Findings from two projects on play, which engaged children as active researchers, suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the messy realities of becoming and being a child researcher. In particular, researchers should be more attuned to children's capabilities and the ethical hurdles for child and adult researchers. This article argues therefore for a more dynamic, meaningful and realistic model of participation, that speaks to the messy realities of becoming and being a child-researcher. In other words, the article questions the dominant orthodoxy of children as researchers as the "gold standard" of participatory research with children

Conceptualizing Youth Participation in Children’s Health Research: Insights from a Youth-Driven Process for Developing a Youth Advisory Council

Given the power asymmetries between adults and young people, youth involvement in research is often at risk of tokenism. While many disciplines have seen a shift from conducting research on youth to conducting research with and for youth, engaging children and teens in research remains fraught with conceptual, methodological, and practical challenges. Arnstein’s foundational Ladder of Participation has been adapted in novel ways in youth research, but in this paper, we present a new rendering: a ‘rope ladder.’ This concept came out of our youth-driven planning process to develop a Youth Advisory Council for the Human Environments Analysis Laboratory, an interdisciplinary research laboratory focused on developing healthy communities for young people. As opposed to a traditional ladder, composed of rigid material and maintaining a static position, the key innovation of our concept is that it integrates a greater degree of flexibility and mobility by allowing dynamic movement beyond a 2D vertical plane. At the same time, the pliable nature of the rope makes it both responsive and susceptible to exogenous forces. We argue that involving youth in the design of their own participatory framework reveals dimensions of participation that are important to youth, which may not be captured by the existing participatory models

Examining the transport to school patterns of New Zealand adolescents by home-to-school distance and settlement types

Background: Scholarship on active transport to school has largely focused on children, (large) urban areas, the umbrella term of “active transport” which considered walking and cycling together and without taking into account walking and/or cycling distance. This research examined adolescents’ patterns of transport to school in diverse settlement types and in relation to home-to-school distance in the Otago region of Aotearoa New Zealand. Methods: Patterns of transport to school by home-to-school distance, and across school locations, are described for a sample of 2,403 adolescents (age: 15.1 ± 1.4 years; 55% females) attending 23 out of 27 schools in large urban areas (n = 1,309; 11 schools), medium urban areas (n = 265; three schools), small urban areas (n = 652; four schools) and rural settings (n = 177; five schools). Empirical data were collected through an online survey, in which adolescents reported sociodemographic characteristics, travel to school, and perceptions of walking and cycling. Home-to-school distance was measured on the shortest route determined using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based network analysis. Results: Transport to school patterns differed significantly by home-to-school distance and across settlement types. Profiles of different transport user groups showed significant variability in sociodemographic characteristics, family factors, average distance to school, self-reported physical activity, and perceived health. Conclusions: Initiatives to promote active transport and reduce reliance on car transport to school, whether to improve health and the environment or to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, need to pay closer attention to the settlement types, distance to school, and characteristics of different transport user modes

Understanding the Relationship between Activity and Neighbourhoods (URBAN) Study: research design and methodology

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Built environment attributes are recognized as being important contributors to physical activity (PA) engagement and body size in adults and children. However, much of the existing research in this emergent public health field is hindered by methodological limitations, including: population and site homogeneity, reliance on self-report measures, aggregated measures of PA, and inadequate statistical modeling. As an integral component of multi-country collaborative research, the Understanding the Relationship between Activity and Neighbourhoods (URBAN) Study seeks to overcome these limitations by determining the strengths of association between detailed measures of the neighborhood built environment with PA levels across multiple domains and body size measures in adults and children. This article outlines the research protocol developed for the URBAN Study.</p> <p>Methods and design</p> <p>The URBAN Study is a multi-centered, stratified, cross-sectional research design, collecting data across four New Zealand cities. Within each city, 12 neighborhoods were identified and selected for investigation based on higher or lower walkability and Māori demographic attributes. Neighborhoods were selected to ensure equal representation of these characteristics. Within each selected neighborhood, 42 households are being randomly selected and an adult and child (where possible) recruited into the study. Data collection includes: objective and self-reported PA engagement, neighborhood perceptions, demographics, and body size measures. The study was designed to recruit approximately 2,000 adults and 250 children into the project. Other aspects of the study include photovoice, which is a qualitative assessment of built environment features associated with PA engagement, an audit of the neighborhood streetscape environment, and an individualized neighborhood walkability profile centered on each participant's residential address. Multilevel modeling will be used to examine the individual-level and neighborhood-level relationships with PA engagement and body size.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The URBAN Study is applying a novel scientifically robust research design to provide urgently needed epidemiological information regarding the associations between the built environment and health outcomes. The findings will contribute to a larger, international initiative in which similar neighborhood selection and PA measurement procedures are utilized across eight countries. Accordingly, this study directly addresses the international priority issues of increasing PA engagement and decreasing obesity levels.</p

Aotearoa New Zealand : is the grass really greener here? : social, political and cultural implications of COVID-19 in New Zealand

In global terms, New Zealand (NZ) has managed COVID-19 comparatively well, with low case and death rates, until the arrival of the Omicron variant in November 2021. Like many other states, the New Zealand government has used public health ordinances to impose restrictions on immigration, limit movement within New Zealand, enact regulations on social distancing and impose occasional lockdowns. Low transmission and case rates translated into high public support for the government’s response, which waned from October 2021 onwards. We attribute this initial high buy-in to a rigorous evidence-based policy and regulation approach and the clear and often empathetic communication by political leaders and other government officials. Nonetheless, New Zealand’s pandemic responses have directly visible, but also unintended, consequences such as the stigmatisation of some groups or the delay of surgeries. While enacting policies such as closing borders and requiring a ‘lockdown’ was swift and firm each time, and accompanied by an attempt to develop a disposition of care and empathy towards the public, more critical engagement with this approach and public health measures are warranted. This chapter will shine a light on the less-heard stories and consequences of the ’winner narrative’ often used in the New Zealand context to highlight the lived experiences, rifts in and consequences of the public health ordinances in New Zealand

Entitlements to health care: Why is there a preference for private facilities among poorer residents of Chennai, India?

This paper examines access to health care by poorer residents in Chennai, India. It reveals constraining and enabling conditions for impoverished users seeking treatment. We explore patterns of health-seeking behaviour through the reasoning of residents themselves as well as stakeholders involved in providing care for these users. Particular attention is paid to the needy residents' preference for private health care providers despite the costs involved and that free public facilities are available. We address this issue by combining Sen's entitlement approach with Penchansky and Thomas' work on access to health care. Based on data gathered in a qualitative field-based research design including interviews with 14 residents and 58 stakeholders involved in caring for poor people, we argue that the availability of health care facilities within walking distance is a necessary but not sufficient precondition for satisfactory access. Rather, we demonstrate the influence of 'entitlements to health care' which allow poor households that are endowed with resources such as income, knowledge and social networks to realise access. The narratives we present reveal not only experiences of health care, but also feelings about its utilisation. The latter, we contend, are crucial in determining choice of health care facilities. This finding suggests that analyses of affordability and physical access to health care in less developed countries should include a focus on emotional dimensions of utilisation. In other words, there is a need to consider not only effective access to health care, but also affective dimensions of treatment for poorer citizens.India Health care Affect Urban poor Access Entitlement Barriers Help-seeking Utilisation Emotions

Growth misconduct? Avoiding sprawl and improving urban intensification in New Zealand

Growth Misconduct? Avoiding sprawl and improving urban intensification in New Zealand. Edited by Karen Witten Wokje Abrahamse & Keriata Stuart Wellington, NZ. Steele Roberts Aotearoa, 2011, 219pp., ISBN 978-1-877577-44-4 Starting from such a small population, in comparison to cities in other developed countries, there has been a time-lag for the full impact of urban growth patterns in New Zealand to be realised to the extent that it warrants a book such as this. Many of the questions being raised in this book are questions that were faced by other countries well into the last century. However, New Zealand is different and with the lack of industry, city growth has few similarities with European and North American cities. New Zealand cities, in particular Auckland and Wellington, have expanded across greenfield sites experiencing growth of detached homes along the fringes with consequent issues that include the excessive use of energy for transport as well as many other environmental and social consequences. New Zealand also has a very different culture with a history of immigrants drawn to the country by its open spaces and the aspiration of owning and, sometimes, working on the land. While New Zealand faces similar problems of peak oil and climate change as the rest of the world, it also has its own specific issues that are analysed in this book