Tangible, Timely, and Thorough: A Case Study on Using Rapid Qualitative Analysis to Inform Human-Centered Intervention Design

Traditional qualitative analysis, while valuable in providing rich understandings of people's lived experience, can be resource and time-intensive, which is challenging for time-sensitive and action-oriented research such as that required in community-engaged and human-centered design (HCD) projects. Rapid qualitative analysis (RQA) has emerged as a valuable approach to balance timeliness with rigor, enabling real-time intervention development. However, limited literature discusses how RQA has been applied to community-based and HCD approaches in public health interventions. This paper presents a methodological case study illustrating how RQA was integrated into an HCD co-design process as part of a larger community-based participatory research project addressing cervical cancer among people experiencing homelessness (PEH) in Indiana. The study aimed to co-design novel cervical cancer screening strategies with and for PEH. A RQA of qualitative interviews with PEH guided iterative intervention development by streamlining data analysis without sacrificing methodological rigor. The RQA process involved (1) establishing key domains of interest based on study aims and the interview guide, (2) creating and testing a summary template for extracting data, and (3) summarizing interview audio recordings using the template and reaching consensus among team members to ensure consistency. This process resulted in a matrix of summarized interview data (30 participants across 15 template domains) synthesized into major themes and compiled into reports that were shared in real time with community partners to inform ongoing intervention refinements. The use of RQA allowed the research team to deliver timely, actionable findings that supported iterative intervention development, and deepened community engagement. Our experience, presented here as a replicable model, demonstrates that RQA is a valuable methodological tool for community-engaged, time-sensitive public health research and should be considered in future HCD projects.