The experience of conducting collaborative and intensive pragmatic qualitative (CLIP-Q) research to support rapid public health and healthcare innovation

A key challenge for qualitative methods in applied health research isthe fast pace that can characterize the public health and health andcare service landscape, where there is a need for research informed byimmediate pragmatic questions and relevant findings are required quicklyto inform decision-making. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated thepace at which evidence was needed to inform urgent public health andhealthcare decision-making. This required qualitative researchers to stepup to the challenge of conducting research at speed whilst maintainingrigor and ensuring the findings are credible. This article illustrates howworking with multidisciplinary, collaborative teams and the tailoring ofqualitative methods to be more pragmatic and ecient can providetimely and credible results. Using time-limited case studies of appliedqualitative health research drawn from the work of the Behavioral andQualitative Science Team from the National Institute for Health and CareResearch Applied Research Collaboration West (NIHR ARC West), we illustrateour collaborative and intensive pragmatic qualitative (CLIP-Q) approach.CLIP-Q involves (i) collaboration at all stages of the design, conductand implementation of projects and, where possible, co-production withpeople with lived experience, (ii) an intensive team-based approach todata collection and analysis at pace, and (iii) pragmatic study design and ecient strategies at each stage of the research process. The case studiesinclude projects conducted pre COVID-19 and during the first wave of thepandemic, where urgent evidence was required in weeks rather than monthsto inform rapid public health and healthcare decision making