ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the benefit of mixed-method approaches in overcoming the conceptual and methodological limitations of the widely popular deprivation index used in urban health research. A renewed enthusiasm for census-based deprivation indices, in conjunction with geographic information system (GIS) analysis, has given rise to a plethora of mapping efforts to visualize " problematic areas" aimed at informing policy prioritization and health intervention. The chapter discusses the "deficit fixing" power of urban deprivation maps, insofar as their ability to reduce people's social identities and their health into stigmatizing representations of tainted urban bodies and places. Discerning explanatory nuances surrounding the relational dimensions of urban deprivation require much more than a map. Beginning in 2009, a research partnership comprising investigators from the University of Manitoba and several community organizations sought to investigate the relational dimensions of the social determinants of health inequality in Winnipeg.
