Visual art and breast health promotion: artists' perspectives.

Unique methodologies to promote health are important to meet the needs of various populations. This paper presents a collaborative approach among nursing, visual arts, and women's studies to promote breast health using visual art. The purpose of this paper is to describe the project from the perspectives of the artists, gain insight into breast health, and understand the use of visual art as a health promotion tool. A structured interview format was employed and data were thematically analyzed. The three main themes that emerged were a strong personal connection to and fear of breast cancer, the need and desire to promote health within the community, and the uni-dimensional nature of breast cancer and breast health. The interviews demonstrated that visual art is an innovative and adaptive methodology to promote breast health.

Web site development: applying aesthetics to promote breast health education and awareness.

This article describes the process of establishing a Web site as part of a collaborative project using visual art to promote breast health education. The need for a more "user-friendly" comprehensive breast health Web site that is aesthetically rewarding was identified after an analysis of current Web sites available through the World Wide Web. Two predetermined sets of criteria, accountability and aesthetics, were used to analyze these sites and to generate ideas for creating a breast health education Web site using visual art. Results of the analyses conducted are included as well as the factors to consider for incorporating into a Web site. The process specified is thorough and can be applied to establish a Web site that is aesthetically rewarding and informative for a variety of educational purposes.