Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 354, Issue 9172, 3 July 1999, Pages 65-68
The Lancet

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Rapid assessment, injecting drug use, and public health

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(98)07612-0Get rights and content

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Origins of rapid assessment

Contemporary notions of rapid assessment represent a convergence and synthesis of different research and intervention traditions.1 Among the most important of these are applied research, medical and emergency response, and community development. As applied research, the methodological origins of rapid assessment can be traced to social interactionism in sociology which emerged in the 1920s, led by the Chicago School.14 These developments emphasised the socially situated nature of individual

Method of rapid assessment

The idea of rapid assessment is simple. It involves the speeding up of social-science research,1 and the explicit linking of assessment to action, thereby giving priority to pragmatic rather than to scientific outcomes. Yet, given the diversity of (often competing) methodological and disciplinary perspectives from which the idea has evolved, attempts have been made to standardise better the method of rapid assessment. This has given rise to several guides and manuals for use in a range of

An example

We have argued that rapid assessment methods are well suited to the undertaking of cost-effective and pragmatic research in a range of social, cultural, and economic environments, particularly when inadequate data exist. The suitability of rapid assessment methods has been increasingly acknowledged in the fields of HIV-1 prevention and IDU.8, 9, 10, 18 Research into drug injecting is known for its practical and methodological difficulties, particularly regarding access to adequate data.19 In

Public-health potential

The speed with which public-health responses are developed can be a critical determinant of risk reduction and disease prevention, yet rapid assessment methods remain peripheral to mainstream public health. Given its emphasis on rapidity, pragmatism, and cost-effectiveness, there is a tendency to regard rapid assessment as a second-rate public-health method. This tendency is compounded by the fact that the findings and impact of rapid assessments are rarely published in scientific journals.

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