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Discourses of research impact shape the ways in which critical qualitative research and researchers are evaluated in contemporary academic environments. Mainstream conceptualizations of research impact arise from a positivist perspective that challenges the aims and approaches of critical qualitative research. In this paper, we propose a framework for conceptualizing the impact of critical qualitative research on policy, practice, and science. After critiquing literature that presents mainstream views on research impact, we summarize a recent framework for conceptualizing the impact of critical research specifically. We then add to the Machen framework by highlighting the impacts of critical qualitative research on the institutions and practices of science. We provide examples of ways in which researchers at the Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research at the University of Toronto have made contributions to the impact of critical qualitative research on science, and conclude by addressing implications of this framework for the ways in which critical qualitative researchers can plan and evidence the impact of their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much qualitative research produces little new knowledge. We argue that this is largely due to deficits of analysis. Researchers too seldom venture beyond cataloguing data into pre-existing concepts and scouting for "themes," and fail to exploit the distinctive powers of insight of qualitative methodology. The paper introduces a "value-adding" approach to qualitative analysis that aims to extend and enrich researchers' analytic interpretive practices and enhance the worth of the knowledge generated. We outline key features of this form of analysis, including how it is constituted by principles of interpretation, contextualization, criticality, and the "creative presence" of the researcher. Using concrete examples from our own research, we describe some analytic "devices" that can free up and stretch a researcher's analytic capacities, including putting reflexivity to work, treating everything as data, reading data for what is invisible, anomalous and "gestalt," engaging in "generative" coding, deploying heuristics for theorizing, and recognizing writing as a key analytic activity. We argue that at its core, value-adding analysis is a scientific craft rather than a scientific formula, a creative assemblage of reality rather than a procedural determination of it. The researcher is the primary generative and synthesizing mechanism for transforming empirically observed data into the key products of qualitative research—concepts, accounts and explanations. The ultimate value of value-adding analysis resides in its ability to generate new knowledge, including not just the "discovery" of things heretofore unknown but also the re-conceptualization of what is already known, and, importantly, the reframing and reconstitution of the research problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hiring and promotion of qualitative researchers in the health sciences, in Canada and internationally, is impacted by the prestige of quantification as the ultimate measure of scientific quality in current academic and health-care settings. This is further exacerbated by neoliberal notions of productivity, which offer very limited forms of assessment for different ways of producing knowledge or doing science differently. While qualitative researchers share the effects of the politics of productivity and corporate university policies with other academics, we argue that they are disadvantaged by the combination of the latent biomedical conservatism that characterizes the health sciences in Canada with the lack of frameworks to acknowledge and properly assess alternative forms of interdisciplinary scholarship. In our experience, it is challenging for qualitative researchers to advance in Canadian health sciences faculties. In light of this, we propose a framework for evaluating their scholarly work. We have structured this article in three sections: (a) to characterize the academic landscape in which qualitative health scholars find themselves when housed in Canadian faculties of medicine and their schools of health sciences, (b) to report on an organizational scan we undertook in order to understand current practices of evaluating scholarly productivity at these institutions, and (c) to propose a set of criteria that could more appropriately evaluate the contributions made by qualitative researchers working in the health sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on long experience as a sociologist in the health academy, I explore the challenges of practicing and teaching critical qualitative research in an environment dominated by very different scientific reasoning. I account for the transgressive positioning of qualitative research in the health sciences in terms of the role of social theory in interpretive research, rising interest in qualitative approaches among health professionals, research and educational doctrines that impede “value-added” analysis, and the ascendance of applied, post-positivist forms of qualitative research. Strategies for producing critical qualitative researchers who can both survive and thrive in the health arena include creation of institutional authority, prioritization of methodological depth over breadth, teaching pragmatic but non-compromising survival skills, and forging supportive communities of practice. I describe how one particular academic organization is engaging with these strategies and reflect on future prospects for educating critical qualitative researchers in the field of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A telephone survey of a random sample of 811 long-term home care clients from three geographically distinct regions in Ontario was conducted to illuminate the living and working conditions in households receiving long-term care services. The median age of clients was 77 years and 75 percent were female. The majority had not completed high school. Almost half were widowed, had income levels of $20,000 (Canadian) or less, and lived alone. Approximately one-third needed help with most basic activities of daily living. The vast majority could not bathe or dress themselves. More than three-quarters needed help with preparing meals, housekeeping, and shopping. Few clients could perform yardwork and home repairs. Many clients' homes required major and minor repairs, were not suitable in size, were not affordable, and lacked important household amenities. More than 30 percent required modifications to enable clients to live and be cared for comfortably and safely, and half the clients had not completed these because of exorbitant costs. Overall, many clients were living in homes less than optimal for domestic life and long-term care provision. These results highlight significant gaps in care provision and a need to link housing to health and social service policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A determinants approach to workplace health promotion focuses on the sources of health and ill health in the workplace itself. Key practice requirements of such an approach include the capacity to shift focus beyond the individual to the work environment, to cross disciplinary and jurisdictional boundaries in identifying problems and solutions, to foster health promotion self-sufficiency within the workplace, to enable worker participation in the process, and to adapt practice strategies to a business setting. This article identifies the challenges of such practice by reference to the experiences of health promoters in a Canadian public health department who attempted a determinants-centered stress reduction program for small-sized businesses. Findings under-score the significance for workplace health promotion of the broader structural context in which the workplace and the intervention are located, of differing perspectives between health professionals and workplace parties, and of conflicting professional accountabilities. Possibilities for addressing these challenges are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on issues of legitimacy or the validity of claims of employees with work-related back injury. Problems in the interactions of injured employees with their colleagues; Structural factors underpinning the problem of legitimacy.