Voices Between the Lines: Storytelling Lived Realities fromPerinatal Health Care Service Users in Canada

Abstract (English)

This presentation explores storytelling as a method of knowledge translation that integrates qualitative and quantitative data in the study of perinatal health care experiences. Our research draws on responses from the Research Examining the Stories of Pregnancy and Childbearing in Canada Today (RESPCCT survey), a national, community-based project co-designed through a Community Participatory-Action Research approach. In RESPCCT, people with recent pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum experiences from marginalized communities co-create a survey with researchers and community organizations capturing both statistical trends and detailed accounts linked to their perinatal care experiences.

Looking to integrate both qualitative and quantitative survey data for a better understanding how individuals interpret their healthcare encounters, we used narrative construction or storytelling to create composite characters based on recurring themes nested in the data. Research analysis included quantitative measures, such as demographics and reported experiences of respect, mistreatment, and care satisfaction: alongside qualitative open-text responses. To synthesize findings our final outcomes, consist in fictionalized personas sharing common features and challenges, whose development is grounded in data analysis, empirical evidence, preserving confidentiality while conveying the emotional and structural dimensions of participants' experiences.

Our merging methods demonstrates how storytelling can function both as analytic and translational tool—surfacing complex patterns of inequity in ways that are accessible, affective, and ethically attuned. It unites the emotional resonance of qualitative data with the structural insights of quantitative findings, revealing how systemic issues in perinatal care are embodied and reproduced.

By combining participatory design, mixed-methods analysis, and narrative synthesis, this approach illustrates how anthropological methods can evolve to engage diverse forms of data while upholding commitments to equity and accountability. Storytelling emerges here not only as a means of presenting research, but also as a critical method for analysing and reimagining systems of care. This paper contributes to ongoing methodological innovation by showing how narrative can support more inclusive, impactful, and theoretically engaged anthropological research.