Conducting public health photovoice projects with those who are homeless: A review of the literature

Abstract

‘Photovoice’ is a photographic method that is used for several purposes (e.g. storytelling, building awareness, enhancing personal discovery), including conducting community-based participatory research (CBPR). Since its creation, photovoice has been used as a method for implementing health-related CBPR projects with people experiencing homelessness. As such, this article presents an overview of seven peer-reviewed publications regarding photovoice projects that were conducted with participants who are homeless. The goal of the review is to provide health professionals with a practical summary of the lessons learned from each photovoice project's methods and findings. Based on the literature, the review's major suggestion is that health professionals should plan and implement future projects according to the fundamental aspects of photovoice (e.g. empowerment of participants to document their community, facilitation of group discussions of photos, concerted efforts to reach policymakers).

Keywords:

• Photovoice
• Homeless
• Participatory
• Health

Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge and thank Dr Caroline Wang for her contributions to photovoice methodology

Disclaimer statements

Contributors The first author came up the with paper's idea, gathered the articles for the review, and wrote the manuscript. The second author helped to write and edit the manuscript.

Funding There were no sources of funding and support.

Conflicts of interest The authors do not have any conflicts-of-interest

Ethics approval This paper has not received ethical approval, because the first author did not believe that a literature review paper required IRB approval since it did not involve human participants.