Lessons learnt from pandemic research with refugee communities

Sunita Joann Rebecca Healey; Nafiseh Ghafournia

doi:10.1071/phrp3242236

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Lessons learnt from pandemic research with refugee communities

Sunita Joann Rebecca Healey ^A ^B ^C ^* and Nafiseh Ghafournia ^A ^D

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Refugee and Multicultural Health Services, Hunter New England Local Health District, Newcastle, NSW, Australia

^B School of Health and Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medicine, University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

^C Hunter Medical Research Institute, New Lambton Heights, NSW, Australia

^D School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

^* Correspondence to: rebecca.healey@health.nsw.gov.au

Public Health Research and Practice 32, e3242236 https://doi.org/10.17061/phrp3242236

Published: 13 December 2022

2022 © Healey et al. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence, which allows others to redistribute, adapt and share this work non-commercially provided they attribute the work and any adapted version of it is distributed under the same Creative Commons licence terms.

Abstract

Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people are subject to many inequities worldwide, and research is no exception. We report lessons learnt as researchers conducting a qualitative study during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic involving participants of refugee backgrounds. We found that despite the best intentions of the research team, a variety of factors in methodology and data collection presented unexpected barriers for our studied population. We share our reflections to assist others in their research endeavours. Researchers and institutions have a moral obligation to provide research practices that are both suitable and beneficial to the community. Collaborating with community members in the research process allows researchers to create ethically sound, practical studies with maximum utility.