TY - JOUR

T1 - Balancing methodological purity and social relevance

T2 - monitoring participant compliance in a behavioural RCT

AU - Winther, Jonas

AU - Hillersdal, Line

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - The adoption of the randomised controlled trial within public health research to test behavioural and lifestyle interventions means that trial researchers are increasingly expected to balance ambitions of methodological rigour and social relevance in the performance of a trial. Striking this balance is particularly important when it comes to the issue of participant compliance. This article draws from fieldwork among researchers in an exercise trial in Denmark to explore the work entailed in achieving and measuring participant compliance from a distance. By drawing on perspectives from surveillance studies, we focus on the practices, technologies and forms of knowing involved in aligning participant’s bodies and practices with specific data production ambitions. The analysis highlights the work and challenges entailed in retaining participants within the scope of the researchers’ monitoring. In conclusion, we suggest that the firm commitment to produce quantitative data on compliance elides the work, challenges and collaborative practices entailed in achieving compliance and highlighting the challenges of ensuring compliance. The article describes the randomised controlled trial, not as a powerful governmental socio-technical apparatus, but as a fragile, situated, and fundamentally challenged surveillance system. This has important implications for ambitions to consider the complexity of behavioural interventions.

AB - The adoption of the randomised controlled trial within public health research to test behavioural and lifestyle interventions means that trial researchers are increasingly expected to balance ambitions of methodological rigour and social relevance in the performance of a trial. Striking this balance is particularly important when it comes to the issue of participant compliance. This article draws from fieldwork among researchers in an exercise trial in Denmark to explore the work entailed in achieving and measuring participant compliance from a distance. By drawing on perspectives from surveillance studies, we focus on the practices, technologies and forms of knowing involved in aligning participant’s bodies and practices with specific data production ambitions. The analysis highlights the work and challenges entailed in retaining participants within the scope of the researchers’ monitoring. In conclusion, we suggest that the firm commitment to produce quantitative data on compliance elides the work, challenges and collaborative practices entailed in achieving compliance and highlighting the challenges of ensuring compliance. The article describes the randomised controlled trial, not as a powerful governmental socio-technical apparatus, but as a fragile, situated, and fundamentally challenged surveillance system. This has important implications for ambitions to consider the complexity of behavioural interventions.

KW - Compliance

KW - Data

KW - Intervention research

KW - Randomized controlled trial

KW - Surveillance

U2 - 10.1057/s41292-019-00163-7

DO - 10.1057/s41292-019-00163-7

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85069051018

VL - 15

SP - 555

EP - 579

JO - BioSocieties

JF - BioSocieties

SN - 1745-8552

ER -