Doing research in peoples’ homes: fieldwork, ethics and safety – on the practical challenges of researching and representing life on the margins

Drawing on the author’s experiences and reflections of researching vulnerable people for a housing research project, this article explores the ethical dilemmas, and the health and safety challenges, of conducting in-depth, qualitative interviews with ‘vulnerable’ research participants in their own homes. Vulnerability, in a housing research context, takes account of: living in poverty; insecure housing/employment situations; poor health and/or mental ill health; alcohol and /or drug dependency, etc. Diary notes are used to illustrate the challenging situations that can unfold when working alone in the field in disadvantaged areas, with vulnerable people, which can present physical and emotional risk. Concern with risk and the potential impact on individuals is two-fold: that on the participant; and that on the researcher. Through reflexivity and revisiting of experiences in the field, this paper explains the difficulties and negotiations, and it provides some suggestions for better research practice

A pooled analysis of 10 case–control studies of melanoma and oral contraceptive use

Data regarding the effects of oral contraceptive use on women's risk of melanoma have been difficult to resolve. We undertook a pooled analysis of all case–control studies of melanoma in women completed as of July 1994 for which electronic data were available on oral contraceptive use along with other melanoma risk factors such as hair colour, sun sensitivity, family history of melanoma and sun exposure. Using the original data from each investigation (a total of 2391 cases and 3199 controls), we combined the study-specific odds ratios and standard errors to obtain a pooled estimate that incorporates inter-study heterogeneity. Overall, we observed no excess risk associated with oral contraceptive use for 1 year or longer compared to never use or use for less than 1 year (pooled odds ratio (pOR)=0.86; 95% CI=0.74–1.01), and there was no evidence of heterogeneity between studies. We found no relation between melanoma incidence and duration of oral contraceptive use, age began, year of use, years since first use or last use, or specifically current oral contraceptive use. In aggregate, our findings do not suggest a major role of oral contraceptive use on women's risk of melanoma

Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8  TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum