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CU �Ǹ�Թ� study shows how a car ride gives scientists new windows into neighborhood health

Many community research interviews last 15 to 30 minutes, taking place either in an interview room or on foot with the researcher and participant walking side-by-side.��

As a woman named Mary drove two researchers though her Minneapolis suburb, a few interview questions turned into an hour-long guided tour of her life.��

They drove past her current home and two houses where she grew up, the local plant shop where she works, George Floyd Square and a shopping district. There, her voice changed as she recalled the civil unrest and pandemic of 2020 and showed them the shuttered storefronts that remain.��

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Geography PhD student Mallory Sagehorn (left) and Assistant Professor Jessica Finlay collaborated with University of Minnesota graduate student Grace Savard on research studying how driving interviews might position scientists to learn about people's lives.

That moment is one of dozens co-authored by Mallory Sagehorn, a doctoral student in the �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Geography, alongside lead author and CU �Ǹ�Թ� Assistant Professor Jessica Finlay.��

Published in SSM – Qualitative Research in Health, their research asks a simple but underexplored question about neighborhood research: How might a driving interview position you to learn about someone's life?

Meeting people how they move

“A lot of what we care about in neighborhood and health research is how people actually interact with the people and places around them—and that’s really hard to get at when someone’s just sitting across from you describing it after the fact,” Sagehorn says.��

Conversations conducted while walking with a participant through their neighborhood have given researchers a way to study how people interact with their surroundings. These “go-along” interviews allow for organic interactions that don’t rely on memory alone.��

“When you’re moving through the same spaces you’re talking about, participants notice things in real time they might never have thought to mention otherwise,” she adds.��

However, in America, walking isn’t how most people move through the world. Whether it’s a car, a bike, a bus or a scooter, reliance on wheeled transportation is the norm for the majority.��

Sagehorn and her colleagues wanted to know if conducting go -along interviews—not by walking, but by meeting people how they move—would be more effective.��

“It really depends on matching the mode of mobility to how people actually move through a given community,” the researchers say. “If you’re working in a walkable neighborhood, walking interviews make sense. If people primarily get around by car, a ride-along is going to give you more authentic, comfortable data.”��

Finlay, who leads a broader research program on how neighborhoods shape health and cognitive aging, says one participant even asked to conduct their interview by skateboard.��

“The value of this method is that it flexes to whatever is most comfortable and authentic for our interviewees,” Finlay notes.��

A private room on wheels��

Of nine participants who chose a car-based interview for the study, their reasons for doing so varied. Many lived in car-dependent suburbs, while others had mobility limitations or didn’t feel safe walking their own streets.��

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“Part of why we do mobile interviews at all is to observe how people actually interact with their environment, and the bubble changes the nature of that interaction by making it, at times, more indirect,” says researcher Mallory Sagehorn.

The researchers anticipated driving interviews would differ from walking, but they didn’t expect just how much the car itself would reshape the conversation.��

“A car-based interview feels like being invited into a private, personal space that moves—almost like stepping into a room of someone’s house,” Savard says.��

That intimacy led to what the researchers would dub the “bubble effect.”��

“We had folks drive us down streets they said they’d never walk down, simply because being in a car gave them a sense of security and access they wouldn’t otherwise have,” says Savard.��

They found that when placing people inside their own vehicle, the bubble it creates allowed them to engage more deeply both on an environmental level and a personal one. It also matters for accessibility. Interviewing in the car lets researchers work around outside factors like mobility limitations, bad weather and physical barriers.��

Still, those benefits come at a cost.��

“Part of why we do mobile interviews at all is to observe how people actually interact with their environment, and the bubble changes the nature of that interaction by making it, at times, more indirect,” Sagehorn notes.

Savard says you might not get to experience a participant’s daily routine the same way you might on foot. They may stop for a casual chat with a neighbor when walking but won’t roll down the window when driving with a researcher.��

The team acknowledges the limitations of driving interviews, but as science isn’t a zero-sum game, they’re still excited about the methodology.��

“There is data you just can’t get from inside a car. But that’s also why we see walking and driving as complements rather than competitors,” Sagehorn says.��

Who sits where?

Seating position also mattered a great deal in the team’s study, perhaps to an unexpected degree. Participants were always positioned in the driver’s seat or front passenger seat, while researchers split roles between conversation in the opposite front seat or note-taking in the back.��

“It was important that they felt like they were the one guiding us through their community, setting the pace, the speed and the direction we traveled in,” Sagehorn says.��

The psychology of seat positions during interviews has been , and it’s been shown that being side-by-side can put participants at ease. In the car, it goes a step further. They can focus on the road and their surroundings rather than forcing eye contact, leaving the mind free to engage.��

“That can take a lot of the intimidation out of the conversation and make people more comfortable opening up,” Sagehorn says.��

Seating arrangements aside, even the clutter of a car can become a storytelling device to an observant researcher.��

Whether it’s a scooter in the back seat or flyers for community events tucked into a visor, these artifacts give researchers a glimpse into a participant’s way of life in a way other interview modalities can’t capture.��

“People carry pieces of their lives around in their cars, and that becomes a window into their routines, interests and how they move through the world that a walking interview just wouldn’t show us,” says Sagehorn.��

Whose voice gets heard

For Sagehorn, Savard and Finlay, the implications of meeting participants at their preferred method of transportation for go-along interviews are important to remember.��

The methodology allows people to take part in neighborhood research who otherwise couldn’t if walking was the only option.��

“If there is one thing we hope policymakers take away from this work, it’s the importance of centering participants and their lived experiences and that driving mobile methods are really about expanding who gets to participate in research in the first place,” Sagehorn says. “Methodology is not neutral, and the format you choose can determine whose voice actually gets heard.”��

That idea continues to shape the team’s outlook.��

“Ultimately, we think the biggest takeaway is that if we want policy that actually reflects people’s realities, we need research methods that get us out into those realities,” they say.��

As studies on equality and accessibility pave the way for a better life for everyone, go-along interviews on wheels are one more tool researchers can use to gather the most realistic data.��

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