Notes from the Field: Conducting Research with Resettled Refugee Women

Understanding the unique health and behavioral health needs of refugees is critical to developing culturally sensitive interventions and services for this vulnerable population. This paper highlights the process of recruiting participants for a study exploring these needs for resettled refugee women from their own perspectives and the perspectives of resettlement service providers. We recruited 14 resettled refugee women and seven service providers to participate in a semi-structured interview, which included open-ended questions and culturally-relevant vignettes designed to stimulate discussion about health and behavioral health issues. Participating women were receptive to the vignettes and were highly engaged in the study. With respect to methods, we found that it is feasible and practical to collect qualitative data using vignettes coupled with semi-structured interview questions. With respect to recruiting strategies, participants were more responsive to personal connections rather than to advertisements for recruitment. This paper reports the methodology; study results are reported separately.