Paper
Saturday, 22 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Terminology Used in Evidence-Based Practice Work and Studies
Women's Health Outcomes: Who Is Left Out?
Andrea Chircop, MN, RN, School of Nursing, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Learning Objective #1: identify at least two populations that risk being marginalized by mainstream health outcomes research.
Learning Objective #2: appreciate the value of socioecological and social justice frameworks as conceptual basis for health outcomes research.
I will argue that over the past few decades the socio-political environment of health care has contributed to a profit motive that is driving the health outcomes research agenda, benefiting some to the exclusion of others.  I will also question the politics of identity of nursing in its quest to produce ‘nursing sensitive’ health outcomes.
There is a general tendency of researchers, in an attempt to contribute new knowledge of women’s health issues, to conceptualize women’s health from a mechanistic paradigm, addressing various organ systems one at a time (Grady, 2004). Methodologies that medicalise women’s health are problematic in that they reduce women’s health issues into unrelated fragments without paying attention to the context of women’s experiences, thus contributing to an inappropriate conceptualization of women’s health.  “The power to define what counts as meaningful change in health status is typically rooted in disciplinary socialisation, linguistic traditions and an orthodox consensus that circumscribes acceptable research foci and methods” (Ray, 1999, p. 1017).   I will close with suggestions of alternative approaches to women’s health research that are more in tune with women’s everyday realities.
            More specifically, my presentation will include a brief overview of the socio-political context of the health outcomes rhetoric in Canada and internationally as it has evolved over the past 40 years or so, which mirrors the evolution of health outcomes research (Pringle & Doran, 2003).  This will be followed by examples from the literature pointing to a profit motive driving the health outcomes research agenda.  After questioning the politics of nursing identity I will suggest research methodologies for health outcomes that allow for a diversity of women’s voices to be heard.  Research approaches embedded within multiple intervention programs, based on conceptual designs of socioecological and social justice frameworks. 

See more of Terminology Used in Evidence-Based Practice Work and Studies
See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)