Loreli Dickey-Cropley Summary

Dr. Loreli Dickey-Cropley received her doctorate in public health from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. However, she started off her career as a registered nurse, earning her degree from Southeastern Louisiana University. As a registered nurse, Cropley noticed how much of what she was treating in patients was preventable. When she worked in community health nursing, she enjoyed working in rural areas that experiencing community level health problems. The idea of focusing on prevention and working on-the-ground pushed Cropley to pursue her master’s. When she began traveling, she realized that she wanted to work internationally because the problems were bigger and the approaches more innovative; thus, she

Cropley stressed when performing research in public health is understanding culture. Public health is centered around identifying a problem, developing an intervention, and implementing it; however, cultural context has to be understood for an intervention to be successful. When entering a new community, one cannot think that they know the needs of the community; rather, a lot of qualitative data must be collected before the intervention can be developed. Cropley uses in-depth interviews and focus groups up front to gather a cultural awareness; this can take a lot of time, but essentially makes a better study. However, quantitative data is also used in running the intervention and doing baseline pretest-posttest study

Qualitative research is intimidating to many because it involves talking to people, learning about the culture and language, revising surveys to fit the community’s definitions and views, and revisiting people. With qualitative data, one cannot punch data immediately after the initial interview; this data takes a lot of time to fully gather. Additionally, qualitative data is seen as softer compared to quantitative. Thus when publishing and presenting research, Cropley explains that it is important to be upfront with one’s bias and to be skeptical of one’s own data. The best way to seem valid is to outline the methods and exact steps used and to ensure they are clean. Using a theoretical framework helps show people that this type of data collection is still science-based and not as weak as it seems. Dr. Cropley personally finds that grounded theory is the best method as it is more structured, solid, and scientific, which also makes it easier to