Whose health profile?

'Community profiling' is seen as the essential starting point for area-based policy initiatives, particularly in public and personal health. Whilst researchers acknowledge that profiles should try to encapsulate the realities of the everyday lives that they depict, 'reality' is a slippery and often ill-defined concept. This article uses a meta-theoretical sociolinguistic theory of 'language creation from below' to ground the construction of a health profile. Drawing on fieldwork, the paper relates this theory to community participation research. It explores ways of developing a knowledge base that integrates qualitative and quantitative datasets. It argues for a form of community health profiling that represents the variety in people's experiences of unequal socioeconomic-cultural circumstances. Audio interviews, photographs and results of residents'/inhabitants' surveys were used alongside mapped, quantitative indicators using geographic information system (GIS) technology. Use of information technologies enabled the creation of a collaboratively owned, multisectoral profile. The paper concludes by arguing for the theoretical framework used.