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The Photovoice participatory action research method created by Caroline Wang and Mary-Ann Burris allows community members to directly capture and document strengths and concerns regarding social issues. Photovoice discussions among participants and researchers promote the critical dialogue, knowledge, and collaboration that is necessary to address important community problems. The results of Photovoice encourage leaders and decision-makers to actively promote well-being through their policymaking.

IPH Center faculty Dr. Margaret McGladrey specializes in Photovoice. Already in 2024, Dr. McGladrey has used Photovoice to support collaborative storytelling with Youth Time Banking and the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, which will be presented at the Kentucky Public Health Association annual meeting on March 7. She wrote a blog post for Photovoice Worldwide to inspire thinking about ways to circulate Photovoice projects through local media and digital outlets. Contact margaret.mcgladrey@uky.edu if you're interested in joining the storytelling community of practice we're building with funding from the inaugural University of Kentucky land-grant engagement grants.

Example Photovoice Projects

HEAL Projects

The National Institutes of Health and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration sponsored the HEALing Communities Study (HCS) to test the impact of implementing a menu of evidence-based practices across healthcare, behavioral health, justice, and other sectors, paired with community engagement and communication campaigns, in reducing opioid overdose deaths. The Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Ohio sites developed a Photovoice protocol providing for comparison across sectors and positionalities in relationship to the opioid epidemic (e.g., professional service providers, people with lived experience, advocates, etc.). This project is innovative in the scale of its engagement of diverse stakeholders and communities to understand one of the most complex public health issues: the opioid epidemic.




a PowerPoint slide for the HEAL project




a PowerPoint slide for the HEAL project

Clark County Health Department Project

Photovoice is well-suited to increase engagement of diverse perspectives in local health department (LHD) community health assessment (CHA)/community health improvement planning (CHIP) practice and has been highlighted in the latest Public Health Accreditation Board standards as a possible CHA primary data collection strategy. This project involved integrating the Photovoice method into the 2022-23 Clark County Health Department CHA process to improve community engagement and equity.




a PowerPoint slide for the Clark County Health Department Project




a PowerPoint slide for the Clark County Health Department Project

This is My Brave at USF

This project involves facilitating and studying implementation of two stigma-reduction evidence-based practices on the University of South Florida (USF) campus — Photovoice and This is My Brave — to explore their relative effects in increasing participation, reducing stigma, and improving help-seeking attitudes and behaviors among not only students but also faculty and staff as participants and audience members. Co-PIs Dr. Kristin Kosyluk and Dr. McGladrey received a USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences internal research grant in fall 2022 to fund implementation of this project in spring 2023.




a PowerPoint slide of the This is My Brave at USF project




a PowerPoint slide of the This is My Brave at USF project

NAMI Sarasota/Manatee

Youth Move Suncoast partnered Dr. McGladrey to help train their staff to conduct a Photovoice project to assess how children and youth understand their needs and desires for mental health/recovery peer support and whether and how these preferences have shifted with their experiences of social distancing and remote learning amidst the pandemic. Their efforts are being supported by a grant to NAMI Sarasota and Manatee Counties/Youth Move Suncoast from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation and Barancik Foundation, were shared with the Sarasota County Behavioral Health Stakeholders Consortium in May 2023, and led to the development of a county-wide youth advisory council.




a PowerPoint slide of the NAMI Sarasota/Manatee project




a PowerPoint slide of the NAMI Sarasota/Manatee project

Lexington-Fayette County Health Department Collaboration

Dr. McGladrey and two undergraduate researchers partnered with the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department to integrate Photovoice into their mixed-methods data collection for their 2024 community health assessment to understand community needs and strengths related to mental and behavioral health. This collaboration led to a CHI Saint Joseph Health grant to LexArts to fund continued Photovoice data collection with the YMCA Black Achievers, the Senior Center, the Hope Center, Bluegrass Care Navigators, the Kentucky Center for Grieving Children and Families, and other community partners. The expanded Photovoice project will be featured in the LexArts “Arts and Health” symposium in November 2024.




a PowerPoint slide of The Photo-Rich Poster




a PowerPoint slide for The Photo-Rich Poster