Understanding health disparities for individuals with intellectual disability using photovoice

Abstract

Background: Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) are at an increased risk for health disparities that serve as barriers to participation in daily occupations. Understanding the lived experience of individuals with ID can illuminate barriers and facilitators to these health-promoting occupations. Commonly used methods examining health for individuals with ID may not reveal important information about their daily participation potentially due to cognitive or communication limitations. Participatory action research including Photovoice is a viable alternative to meet their unique needs.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the process of using a Photovoice method with individuals with ID and present results from two participants to understand their meaning of health.

Method: An analysis of two participants is provided to illustrate the use of Photovoice.

Results: Three themes, Personal Identity of Health, Nutrition, and Meaningful Occupation were identified using photos, personal narratives, and focus group data.

Conclusions: Participants had complex definitions of health that are better understood through the composite of narrative descriptions and visual data as compared to more commonly used research methods. The use of a Photovoice method allowed participants to communicate additional depth and complexity of their understanding of health that has not been previously captured.

Keywords:

• Participatory action
• intellectual disabilities
• health disparities
• Photovoice
• occupation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the participants, lab volunteers, and our generous funding sources for making this work possible. Special thanks to Russell St. John for his graphic design expertise in the creation of our visual representation of the data.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to disclose

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this project was generously provided by the Society for the Study of Occupation – USA. student grant award and the Gertrude E. Gaston Endowment in Occupational Therapy Fund at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Project number: 233-PRJ22AW.