Adapting and Integrating Photovoice in a Baccalaureate Community Course to Enhance Clinical Experiential Learning.

BACKGROUND: The adaptation and incorporation of photovoice--a qualitative research method--into the Community Health Nursing clinical course to foster students' clinical reasoning in a community setting is presented. METHOD: Photovoice was used as a teaching strategy in the windshield survey and key informant interview activities that are part of the community health clinical experience. Students were provided with disposable cameras and were instructed to take photographs of the community. RESULTS: Students shared the photographs with faculty and community members and explored ways of developing sustainable community-based interventions that promote and protect health. CONCLUSION: Photovoice can be used as a teaching strategy tool in any clinical course to foster experiential learning.

Sowing the seeds of change: social justice as praxis in undergraduate nursing education.

In undergraduate nursing curricula, the rhetoric of social justice has held more prominence than its operationalization. Although undergraduate education is a prime vehicle for fostering social change, articles that describe social justice as praxis in baccalaureate nursing curricula are relatively uncommon. Addressing this gap, we explain how four RN-to-BSN courses use social justice as a framework for instruction. The first two courses generate emancipatory knowledge and advocacy ideas among students by underscoring how privilege and oppression operate in society, as well as in the production of health inequities. The final two courses demonstrate how partnerships with communities can enhance student knowledge regarding structural barriers to health and health care and lead to actions that target those issues. Despite challenges that exist when implementing curricula on amending health inequities, nurse educators are urged to press onward in planting the seeds of social justice in their classrooms; suggestions are made for accomplishing this goal.

Lessons from the field: Using photovoice with an ethnically diverse population in a HOPE VI evaluation.

An interdisciplinary research team evaluated a public housing revitalization project in northwest Washington State to assess the effects of relocation on residents and provide recommendations on assets in the new community. Researchers used photovoice as one method to gather data, asking participants to take photographs of their neighborhood and discuss the images with interviewers. This article addresses the challenges of using photovoice in a community that included immigrants from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Russia. The practical, ethical, and social challenges of using photovoice in ethnically diverse populations and implications for practice are discussed.

Exploring food insecurity among young mothers (15-24 years).

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of food insecurity of young mothers (15-24 years) and identify strategies used to manage food-insecure periods. DESIGN AND METHODS: This exploratory study used the U.S. Household Food Security Survey Module, cognitive interviewing, and individual interviews. RESULTS: Sixteen out of 21 young mothers indicated that they fluctuated between low food insecurity (reduced desirability of diet), and all 21 participants reported some days of food insufficiency (anxiety over shortage of food). All the women reported that their children had only marginal food insecurity due to extensive strategies. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Nutrition counseling must include food insecurity assessment.

Being healthy: voices of adolescent women who are parenting.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this ethnography was to explore how adolescent women who are parenting describe what "being healthy" means to them and how they define their health needs. METHODS: In addition to traditional ethnographic methods of interviewing and participant observation, photovoice was utilized. RESULTS: Women's definitions of "being healthy" were grouped into three categories: (1) "taking care of my body," (2) "not being stressed out," and (3) "having what you need." PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The findings of this research study suggest that healthcare professionals should consider adolescent mothers knowledgeable actors of their own lives and move beyond current strategies to concentrate on issues, such as socioeconomic contexts, that hinder the health and nutrition of these young women.