Do you mind if I smoke here? Exploring the insights that public benches bring to public health research.

Do you mind if I smoke here? Exploring the insights that public benches bring to public health research. Can J Public Health. 2020 Jun 17;: Authors: Lapalme J, Glenn NM, Frohlich KL Abstract In this commentary, we illustrate how exploring the meanings and uses of everyday, seemingly mundane, public objects can advance our understanding of health-related practices and the social norms that shape them. We use the example of the public bench and smoking for this purpose. By observing the design of public benches, the places where they are found, the meanings people attribute to them, and the way people use them, we can learn what health-related practices (e.g., smoking) and who (e.g., people who smoke or who do not smoke) are included and excluded as part of local community life. We thus consider the idea that public benches can be instructive in helping us understand how our health-related practices may be shaped by what can be seen enacted on or from public benches. We ultimately demonstrate how this type of object-based experiential exploration, largely absent from public health research, can provide a novel and insightful perspective to public health research. PMID: 32557288 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Canadian Journal of Public Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Can J Public Health Source Type: research