The application of ‘elite interviewing’ methodology in transdisciplinary research: A record of process and lessons learned during a 3-year pilot in urban planetary health research

Scally, Gabriel; Black, Daniel; Pilkington, Paul; Williams, Ben; Ige-Elegbede, Janet; Prestwood, Emily

Abstract

This paper sets out the rationale and process for the interviewing methodology utilized during a 3-year research pilot, ‘Moving Health Upstream in Urban Development’ (UPSTREAM). The project had two primary aims: firstly, to attempt to value economically the health cost benefits associated with the quality of urban environments and secondly, to engage with those in control of urban development in the UK in order to determine what are the barriers to and opportunities for creating healthy urban environments, including those identified through the utilisation of economic valuation. Engagement at senior level with those who have most control over key facets of planning and development implementation—such as land disposal, investment, development delivery and planning permission—was central to the approach, which encompassed the adoption of ‘elite interviewing’, a method developed in the USA in the 1950s and used in the political sciences but relatively unutilized in the health and environmental sciences [1]. Two rounds of semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 15 senior decision-makers from the UK’s main urban development delivery agencies, both public and private. The ‘elite interviewing’ approach successfully enabled the UPSTREAM project to capture and analyse the information received from the interviewees, all of whom held influential or leadership posts in organisations that are important actors in the process of planning, developing and constructing the built environment in the UK. Having academic and practitioner research leads on an equal footing created some minor tensions, but it also appeared to strengthen the rigor of the approach through a broad knowledge of context ‘in-house’. This form of co-production at times challenged academic traditions in qualitative analysis, but it also appeared to build trust with interviewees and provided greater clarity of the real-world context under investigation. Findings from this study are written up in a separate paper.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 9, 2021
• Online Publication Date: May 14, 2021
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: May 17, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 7, 2021
• Journal: Journal of Urban Health
• Print ISSN: 1099-3460
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-2869
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 98
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 404-414
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-021-00542-1
• Keywords: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health; Health(social science)
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7401198
• Additional Information: Accepted: 9 February 2021; First Online: 14 May 2021