Trauma Informed Approaches to Researcher-Participant Relationships: Examples from a Community-Based Housing and Health Study

In qualitative research, the primary goal of establishing researcher-participant relationships is to allow for vulnerability and authenticity while maintaining professional boundaries. Navigating these relationships can be difficult, as there are limited frameworks in community-based public health informing safe qualitative research methods when there is risk of invoking an emotional response. Trauma-informed care (TIC) in mental health services and social work considers the impact of violence and victimization in the lives of clients, while emphasizing trauma as causation (SAMHSA, 2014; Butler, 2011). Applying a trauma-informed approach to qualitative research processes can assist in building rapport with research participants, minimizing re-traumatization, and uncovering significance. Research suggests that trauma-informed approaches avoid excluding underrepresented voices and allows researchers to engage through a social justice and health equity lens (Roche, 2020). Within the design of a housing and health study aimed at exploring shared housing situations among low-income immigrant Hispanic/Latine residents in Portland, Oregon, USA, we critically applied TIC principles into our community engagement, methodology, and research team practices, by prioritizing participant agency in decision-making, safety in study activities, and trust in the research team. We present the application of TIC concepts of safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment, and positionality to our research process and findings, and reflect on the value and challenge of integrating TIC into qualitative research methodology. Examples include prioritizing safety in interviews by anticipating uncomfortable topics, and practicing responses and tailoring follow-up. We also highlight how TIC is used in analyzing interviews and focus group data from 49 participants, from reflexive perspectives of research team members with diverse experiences of shared housing situations themselves. The goal of integrating TIC is to improve participant and researcher experiences by centering the social and ethical challenges inherent in the design and process of a qualitative research project.