Photovoice Worldwide (PVWW) is excited to be attending the 2023 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Expo in Atlanta, Georgia. With its focus on empowering vulnerable and marginalized communities to advocate for positive change as it relates to their health, safety, and overall wellbeing, photovoice goes hand in hand with public health.
Photovoice is a participatory action research method first used in the early 1990s to include village women in Yunnan Province, China, in policy decision-making affecting their lives and communities. Over the past three decades, it has gained much traction, becoming popular with public health researchers and practitioners the world over.
Engaging people with valuable lived experience as co-researchers, photovoice asks its participants to answer questions using photos and captions, providing decision makers with powerful data that foster awareness and inform change.
How does this relate to public health? Photovoice allows consumers of health services to have a voice in their healthcare. Today, professionals in many different settings are using the photovoice method as a tool to learn about their patients and clients from their perspectives and encourage the adoption of health-promoting policies.
Photovoice photographs can illuminate factors that influence attitudes, behaviors, and challenges related to access to healthcare and quality of care – and contribute to decision-making in respectful ways. Photovoice unites patients, service providers, and payers in addressing health and healthcare as shared endeavors.
Populations that have benefited from participating in photovoice research and outreach include people living with chronic health conditions or disabilities, veterans, youth, BIPOC, survivors of human trafficking, migrant workers, immigrants, those who identify as LGBTQ, unhoused persons, frontline workers, those who lack access to economic resources, and many others.
Since 2019, Photovoice Worldwide LLC has been providing photovoice education and consultation with a focus on illuminating resources and problems, and healing individuals and communities. A small, woman-owned social enterprise, its mission is to help individuals and organizations worldwide use photovoice safely, ethically, and successfully, and create a global community for photovoice peer-to-peer support and continuing education.
Here is what some of our clients are saying about our services:
We are grateful to Laura and her team at PhotovoiceWorldwide for their expert knowledge, professionalism, and community-centered guidance for our photovoice research trainings. They are thoughtful and inclusive collaborators, going above and beyond in providing for our partners and tailoring the curricula according to our needs. They led and facilitated two online trainings during the pandemic with us and with great success. We, including our partners, are thrilled with the outcomes: community building, in-person & online exhibits, and a toolkit for our partners. Thank you PVWW, for imparting the power of photovoice to us! -Jenny Fan, Manager, Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) at UC Irvine
The PVWW team leaned into collaboration in such meaningful ways. With the varied strengths of the team, we were able to develop a toolkit that was relevant, accessible, and comprehensive. This wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for their willingness to listen and apply the perspectives of Ohio preventionists throughout the process while balancing PV best practices and the abbreviated timeline we were working on. Quality never strayed, even as we raced toward the end of our contract, because of the commitment to our shared vision of this resource. – Sarah Ferrato, Manager of Sexual Violence Prevention & Public Health Initiatives, Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence
From the beginning, Laura's guidance was exceptional. She brainstormed with me, helping me explore creative angles and approaches to my project. Her encouragement to think outside the box allowed me to infuse my unique perspective and experiences as an International Social Worker into the work, while she skillfully ensured that I stayed true to the principles of photovoice throughout the project. Her gentle reminders and constructive feedback kept me on track, while still granting me the freedom to adapt the approaches to the German context and the people I work with.
– Katharina Winterhalder, PhD Candidate in social innovation in the context of forced migration at Yunus Center for Social Business and Health. Glasgow Caledonian University