11 thoughts on “Participatory Approaches to Health Communication”
I thought the first reading used really powerful examples to explain each of the four different participatory research tools. I thought it was really interesting that in the sketching activity, most of the participants drew something that was a minor part of the story. That definitely highlighted how sketching can give individuals a lot more freedom than a structured interview can. I also really liked the go-along method because it seemed like a much more powerful experience than just coming up with a visual based on someone’s explanation of an environment in an interview. I was surprised to see the example of a network map that was provided in the article because it made me realize how complex these maps can be. This also made me think about how powerful this tool can be because it can visually represent how complex people are and how many connections we have. The image that compiled all the network maps was especially powerful because it reminded me how connected we all are. The life map also surprised me because the image is very simple but it represents so many compiled experiences and all the ups/downs in someone’s life. I thought all four methods were interesting because they create four different images that can describe the same individual.
I really liked the body map key image on page 6 of the second reading, especially the arrows pointing to the different parts of the body. The shoulders stood out to me because I thought that was a great way to highlight the weight that could be on someone’s shoulders. As I was looking at the image, I kept thinking of responses I would give to each prompt and it made me realize all the components of myself that make me who I am. The image of the body just emphasized that there are so many parts that make up a whole and the different parts all contribute in different ways.
The third reading was really interesting because the conflicts ranged from historical events to very current events. It was interesting to see how storytelling could have an effect throughout time. Before this class, I have never really thought of storytelling as a way to heal and never really thought about it as anything other than a social activity. I thought this reading emphasized what I have been learning in this course, which is that storytelling can be an extremely powerful resource to spread awareness, find shared experiences among people and bring people together. It was interesting to read how storytelling can bring up internal conflict when you are aware who is listening to your story, as well as all the feelings that can be brought up by listening to someone else’s story.
All three of this week’s readings focused on different participatory health techniques and the implementation of said techniques. The first reading was very effective in instructing on four different participatory techniques. According to the author, participation in health communication is meant to shift the power balance present in health communication programs. The author lists four techniques to allow individuals to participate in their health communication: drawings, guided walks, network maps, and life maps. I particularly liked the drawings and life maps, as I could see those strategies easily being implemented during a support group. For example, the Communication Disorders department runs aural rehabilitation groups for those who have hearing loss. Navigating hearing loss can be something that is very emotionally taxing and requires a certain degree of counseling. Involving and invoking patients’ experiences with their hearing loss would be easy to do through a drawing or more particularly a life map, focusing on their time of diagnosis, or their adjustment period to amplification technology such as hearing aids or cochlear implants.
The second reading was very interesting in that it approached the issue of teenage pregnancy in a way that I had never encountered before. Rather than shaming or blaming teenage mothers, this study allowed them to become empowered through body mapping. It seemed to be powerful and empowering to allow the participants to examine their views of their own bodies and self and to examine their goals and dreams.
Finally, the third reading showed how narratives might be beneficial outside the sphere of health communication, but rather in mediating social conflict. Using TRT techniques for group storytelling, the researchers united a group of Jewish and Palestinian students, and allowed them to participate in storytelling in order to mediate conflict due to war. The researchers found that the students learned more about each other as well as about the nuances of their own families and groups, and were able to see a different perspective on the other group despite ongoing conflict. This study suggests the social and mediating power of storytelling and narrative-sharing.
The first reading was on participatory research methods and different approaches to engage people in a way that allows them to take a lead role. This article helped set a base for the next two articles we read because they all deal with examples of participatory research methods. I found the four methods really interesting, especially the sketching method. What I liked about these four designs is that by leaving the activity open-ended and general, it allows the participants to choose what to share. What they decide to share is likely going to be what they feel is more important in their lives, which can be very telling of a community, as we saw in the sketching example. I had never thought of drawing as a research method. The combination of drawing and explaining the drawing was very successful and takes pressure off of people to answer specific questions that they may not feel is very relevant. I have never done anything like these methods, but I did conduct two interviews over the summer in order to create testimonials for the All of Us Research Grant. What I liked was that the questions were broad and open-ended. While this is not the same as what we read in this chapter, it did give the interviewees the chance to choose to share what they felt was most important and relevant to them. The end was result was successful and I felt I had learned a lot about these people and the needs of their community.
I think I have read the teen birth article before for my capstone class in undergrad. This article was an interesting example of using a participatory research tool in real life. Here, they used body mapping, which kind of seemed like a form of prompted sketching because the participants had certain questions to answer in combination with drawing. Participants will choose to draw and share what they feel comfortable sharing, but also what they feel is most important in their lives and what they want other people to know. In the case of teen pregnancy, this is especially important because teen parents often get left out of the conversation when it comes to public health campaigns that are supposed to be about them.
The final article we read used storytelling, called To Reflect and Trust (TRT), to work through trauma. Specifically, this started with children of Holocaust victims and children of perpetrators (Nazis). The storytelling format was successful in creating a space to learn to live with the trauma that has happened. They then used an adapted format for Jewish and Palestinian Israeli students, where students would work together to write a join paper based on interviews of their family members. It is really interesting to see examples of facilitators notes from these sessions, and how although the two groups have had conflict, through listening to each other’s stories, they could see common themes. This allowed the two groups to be more empathetic of each other. The main difference between the example with the Holocaust and these students is that these students are in the midst of the conflict, whereas with the other group, the main conflict had already occurred. While reading this article, I was thinking about other conflicts that are currently occurring today, and how a class similar to this would pan out with other groups. I think it can be especially hard to do this with a conflict that is currently occurring because it brings in a new level of difficulty when discussing trauma.
Participatory approaches expand the role of community members in public health work, thus reducing the power imbalance between the community and academic researchers or public health professionals. I think this is really important, because knowledge goes beyond things learned in the classroom or academic setting. Knowledge from experience, especially when considering community health, is arguably more valuable and relevant to inform public health work in a specific community. Community members know what it is like to live in their community or neighborhood and how that experience is impacting health. Without their input the right kinds of public health work might not happen. For example, maybe the heart disease rates are really high in a community so based on the numbers you think you should do some public health campaigns and work around this issue. Yet you find that no one is showing up. If you had talked to community members you could have realized that gang violence is a more immediate and pressing issue in that community; it’s pretty hard to care about heart disease later in life when you are more concerned about your immediate safety. Speaking with the community this case would have saved wasted resources for efforts that are not a priority for folks.
The readings each went over different methods used in the participatory approach. The first reading covered sketching, ethnographic go-along, network mapping, and life mapping. Two that really stuck out to me were the network and life mapping methods. To me, network mapping seems like it could be a really useful tool when trying to determine what organizations in an area are doing “the work†and who is/isn’t working together. This could be especially helpful for someone who is new to a community to orient them and provide some basic knowledge as to who to reach out to for different collaborative projects. The life mapping method was also an interesting approach. I think it can be really insightful to find out what event(s) in someone’s life that they find to be really important to their happiness (or sadness). Some things that others might assume were a high or low point for that person may not have been. This kind of exercise gives great context to someone’s life, especially in addition to life history interviews. The second reading covered body mapping as another method to the participatory approach. This method can also provide a lot of insight into someone’s experiences as it allows participants to highlight what is important to them and their life in a visual way. The last reading covered how storytelling can be used as a method to “work through intractable conflicts.†This article highlighted the advantages and challenges of this approach. The advantages to this approach in this context are very similar to benefits of storytelling we have previously discussed in class. A main challenge the authors found was that this approach is very sensitive to ongoing violent external events.
Participatory approaches in health communication research are deeply rooted in agriculture and rural development and emerged as scholars and practitioners started recognizing the use of nonparticipatory research methods that resulted in a power imbalance between researchers and participants. Figure 17.2 showed the different levels of engagement a community can provide such as a community member being the respondent, as the analyst, or as a researcher. This reading covered the different types of methods used in a participatory approach such as sketching, ethnographic go along network mapping, and life mapping. Some of these seem familiar from the course community development like network mapping. Network mapping gives the tools to the community to use their tools, resources, and connections to create changes in their own communities.
The second reading on teen pregnancy and parenting suggested another approach, body mapping which can be a lens into someone’s life experiences. “Body mapping is an engaging, innovative participatory visual methodology, that involves young parenting women and other marginalized population in drawing out a deeper understanding of sexual health inequities.†(Aline C. Gubrium, Alice Fiddian-Green, Kasey Jernigan & Elizabeth L. Krause (2016): Bodies as evidence: Mapping new terrain for teen pregnancy and parenting, Global Public Health). This study focuses on approaches to decreasing teen pregnancy by using visual methods as evidence to help study teen pregnancy.
The last reading focused on the power of storytelling and the advantages and challenges of using this approach. I am currently working on an oral history project called Tibetan Resettlement Stories: Voices of Boston where the final product is a book that will be published this upcoming November. I along with other first-generation Tibetans have worked on this for the last 5 years collecting the stories of the Tibetan refugees who immigrated to the United States in the 1990s and earlier. Through something simple as storytelling we were able to gather stories on assimilation, cultural preservation, mental health, and other challenges as an immigrant. I am really excited about the final product and through this project, I know how important and powerful storytelling is especially as a tool and a voice for marginalized communities.
There is always time for a story. These readings on participatory health investigation showed that really we should be asking different questions in different ways. What struck me as unique about all three of these readings is that along with collecting valuable data, they also were of benefit to the study participants. From body mapping, sketching, ethnographic go-along, to guided storytelling each experience gave the participants as much if not more as it gave the researchers. How can health care professionals develop more of this model? Engaging individuals about their health, asking different questions, and waiting for the answers. With our priority of brisk efficiency there is hardly any time for these wonderful techniques in the acute care setting, but perhaps primary care physicians and nurses could make good use out of some of these techniques.
It was interesting to me in the second article when they listed all the negative stigmatic themes attached with being a teen mother they didn’t mention anything about the health risks of being a teen mother. I have been taught through nursing school that teen pregnancies are more at risk for placental abruption, spontaneous abortion, postpartum hemorrhage, and many more pregnancy and birth complications. Though looking at these correlational health risks from more of an ecological perspective (Public health model that examines the environmental, political, and personal contributions to health in conjunction with one another) I wonder if they negative health outcomes I have been taught about teen pregnancies is not strictly from the age at which they are pregnant but a combination of the societal factors which have placed these young women in these situation. This article took an ecological perspective when it discussed the negative associations held towards teen moms. What if it’s not being a teen mom that is detrimental but the society that is structured against teen moms?
The first reading focused on four different types of participatory research. The four are sketching, ethnographic go-along, network mapping, and life mapping. To help us better understand each method was explained using a case study. Each of these research cases were interesting. I really found the sketching among the Sudanese people interesting because in some way it eliminated some of the language barriers even though interpreters were still needed. I like the go-along method because it allows for more natural responses because its not necessarily a planned interview and the environment is often a place that the participant is familiar with. I have heard of network mapping before this article; however it was never in terms of health communication I’ve heard it in marketing and business. Despite that, the idea of network mapping was similar which was a nice connection to make. Life mapping is a good starting technique. I believe it allows people to reflect on their life and choose high and low points and very much be a good start to asking follow up questions.
The second reading was my favorite because it focused on teen pregnancy but shaded a different light on it. It gave teen women a voice where there voice us often ignored or deemed not important. Body mapping allowed them to share in a way that they may have felt less vulnerable because usually those dealing with teen pregnancy are naturally dealing with societal scrutiny making them vulnerable as is. I also found this method to be a unique way to approach sexual health because it took into account people’s stories and feelings.
The last reading was more similar to a lot of other readings we have read about storytelling. However what really stood out was the similarity in conflict and how common themes were found.
The common thread I saw in all three readings this week was one of giving the power back to the participants. Whether it was power through art, storytelling, or feeling in control of the research process. As many of our other readings have discussed, including the community members in health communication is necessary for effective and sustainable results. The first reading discussed participatory research approaches and focused on four specific case studies. Participatory research approaches emphasize the generation of power, designed to lead to action, and allows members to become the leaders in the advancement of their community. The reading brought up the importance of this approach because of the differing meanings of “health†in different communities. This is also a topic we have talked about in class; health means different things to different people so in order to influence the health behaviors of a community, those leading the health communication must have a strong understanding of their definition. The case study that interested me the most was the role of participatory sketching. I watched a video on female genital cutting in a human sexuality class I took during undergrad and the people in that video were all strong proponents of the practice and felt it was necessary. It was interesting to see that a radio soap opera had such a large impact that it made some people in Sudan question the practice of female genital cutting. I liked that through the prompt and sketches an otherwise taboo topic was brought up and gave the group a space to talk about it. Having that experience probably made the participants realize they were not alone in their feelings toward female genital cutting and could feel more confident in their decisions.
The second reading also exemplified how art can be used to generate discussion and lead to new ways of developing resources for a population. The body mapping activity concept is fascinating and a unique approach that I had never heard of before. I especially like that it allowed the young parents to address the stereotypes that so often come along with teen pregnancy. It was interesting to read some of the participants’ opinions on the show Teen Moms; I have often wondered how accurate that show really was and how other teen parents felt about it. Representations of teen pregnancy like Teen Moms perpetuates the negative connotations about that population and gives people a false impression of the reality of teen parenthood. Through the results of body mapping activities new questions come up and researchers get a better idea of what support and resources the teen parent population actually needs.
The third reading on storytelling had me thinking a lot about restorative justice as I was reading it. Restorative justice involves the victim, the community, and the offender making amends. That was also the premise of the storytelling workshops for the Palestinian and Jewish students. One of the first things that stuck out to me was that “working through an experience is learning to live with the painful past better than one has up until nowâ€. The goal of the workshops was not to forget or move on from the trauma caused but rather learn to cope with it and hopefully understand the other side of the conflict better, also similar to restorative justice. Workshops like these gives people from opposite sides of a conflict an opportunity to come together to explain their trauma and learn from those who were on the other side of it. I found it interesting when it was brought up that the consequences of social trauma are passed on through generations. The younger generations learned how to deal with the trauma from their elders and often the strategy was to not deal with it all. I think that this sometimes can lead to the younger generations not fully understanding what the conflict was about or what the core root of their anger stems from.
I found the participatory approaches to health communication from this weeks readings quite fascinating. Each text presented unique methods in which a participatory approach can be enacted from a public health perspective. In the first reading, the authors conducted participatory sketches in a group setting as a way to represent personal experiences. This sketches were an effective tool in initiating discussions as well as provide insights on individuals’ experiences for a given health related topic. In this reading, the authors utilized this approach on research participants in Sudan and productive conversations on the topic of female circumcision was the result. This sketching activity created an environment where these Sudanese women could openly discuss their experiences with this subject which may have typically never happened due to the taboo nature of it. I thought that this was a great method to generate conversations around topics that are not typically discussed in order to galvanize some type of activism or awareness.
The second reading utilized body mapping as a participatory health communication approach with teen parents. This method is used as a way to shift attention from negative focus that is often highlighted in the medical model of health that emphasizes an impairment that needs resolution. The focus of these individuals bodies gives them a voice where they otherwise would be constrained by society. In the Hear Our Stories project, body mapping was used with a group of young parenting Latinas in which they told their life stories’ through a body map. Participants were given prompts to respond to artistically on the body map to express their lives. This activity encouraged participants to explore their identity in terms of teen motherhood and the ways in which it has influenced their lives. Similar to the sketching activity from the prior reading, this activity encouraged discussion on taboo topics such as trauma, home insecurity, and interpersonal violence to name a few. This activity emphasizes the individuals; lived experiences as opposed to them being analyzed as the subject for data. In this way, we can generate a greater understand of the lives of these young women. A participatory visual method such as this can be successful in identifying some of the root issues for topics related to health such as teen pregnancy and this information can be used for further public health initiatives
Finally, the last reading used storytelling as a participatory approach and applied it to a Jewish-Palestine student workshop as a way to work through conflict. This technique was compared to the German-Jewish conflict and the tendency of lack of open discussion between generations that lived through the Holocaust and their children. Telling stories can be used as a method to work through such experiences. The goal of such an activity was to initiate communication and develop a shared understanding between two groups that have been known to be at conflict. While in this particular study no arrival to a resolution to the conflict was made, a conversation was ignited that encouraged the participants to seek out further information regarding this longstanding conflict and educate themselves further about this deep history that belongs to their identities.
From all these readings, it seems that participatory approaches have the ability to be very successful in generating conversation and encouraging further activism. Whether or not activism is realistically achieved though is questionable.
This week’s readings focused on participatory methods of research. The Greiner reading explained four different methods of participatory research to supplement traditional interviews: participatory sketching, “going along,” network mapping, and life mapping. These tools appear useful, not just because they help to generate data, but because they help individuals reflect and process their experiences. I wonder how the timing of these tools- either before or after the traditional interview- could alter interview results. I imagine that using these methods before the traditional interview may cause participants to touch on topics that they otherwise may not have thought were significant.
The next article, “Bodies as evidence: Mapping new terrain for teen pregnancy and parenting,” provided an impactful example of participatory action research in practice. Although this study was quite small, what I found most important was how the sessions seemed to empower the participants. The exercises were not just about collecting data; rather, they provided participants ways to process their emotions and experiences. They also helped demonstrate how structural violence and cultural beliefs have tangible impacts on the body. I am interested in learning more about the process of developing these workshops, as I can imagine it may be very difficult to get participants involved in activities like creating art, especially if they don’t believe they can be artistic.
The third reading discussed how storytelling can be used as a tool to help people process traumatic events. Although I understand the concept behind using this strategy, I have to wonder if it was an ethical tool in this situation. It seemed like the Palestinian Israeli students were in a more precarious position than the Jewish participants; for example, the lack of support from Jewish students during the Palestinian moment of silence was described as being a “traumatic experience” for the Palestinian participants. Additionally, the Palestinians were concerned about their stories being used as fuel for the university to discriminate against them. It seems like the experience did lead to new understanding and new relationships being formed, but I wonder if these outcomes were worth the costs.
This week’s readings were on participatory approaches to health communication. One approach that the first reading touched on was participatory sketching. When the authors said asking adults to draw is not easy made me think about a time when my job asked our elderly residents to draw. I work at an assisted living place on weekends and one activity we had was an art therapist came in and asked the residents to draw a tree that symbolizes their lives. At first it was very hard for them to understand why they were doing this and what their tree would even look like. After a while, they created these beautiful trees that had an even more beautiful and allowed me to understand them in a different way. I think drawing or participatory sketching could be very powerful to understand participants and people in general.
The reading that appealed to me most was the one on body mapping. Body mapping allows participants to express themselves and answer questions in a different way. The quote, “The body mapping process stands out as an innovative approach for acknowledging and incorporating the multifaceted nature of people’s lives, and recognises the limitations of traditional research methods and approaches to assessing and addressing health inequities†resonated with me because I believe it is important for us to see different dimensions of an individual so we can better understand their life course. The Hear Our Stories project seems so powerful and empowering. I really enjoyed reading about the process the participants went through while body mapping such as how they connected one point of their life to another and how they visually showed the themes of trauma and support systems. I have seen many people who I grew up with express their trauma through art such as song making and graffiti art.
I thought the first reading used really powerful examples to explain each of the four different participatory research tools. I thought it was really interesting that in the sketching activity, most of the participants drew something that was a minor part of the story. That definitely highlighted how sketching can give individuals a lot more freedom than a structured interview can. I also really liked the go-along method because it seemed like a much more powerful experience than just coming up with a visual based on someone’s explanation of an environment in an interview. I was surprised to see the example of a network map that was provided in the article because it made me realize how complex these maps can be. This also made me think about how powerful this tool can be because it can visually represent how complex people are and how many connections we have. The image that compiled all the network maps was especially powerful because it reminded me how connected we all are. The life map also surprised me because the image is very simple but it represents so many compiled experiences and all the ups/downs in someone’s life. I thought all four methods were interesting because they create four different images that can describe the same individual.
I really liked the body map key image on page 6 of the second reading, especially the arrows pointing to the different parts of the body. The shoulders stood out to me because I thought that was a great way to highlight the weight that could be on someone’s shoulders. As I was looking at the image, I kept thinking of responses I would give to each prompt and it made me realize all the components of myself that make me who I am. The image of the body just emphasized that there are so many parts that make up a whole and the different parts all contribute in different ways.
The third reading was really interesting because the conflicts ranged from historical events to very current events. It was interesting to see how storytelling could have an effect throughout time. Before this class, I have never really thought of storytelling as a way to heal and never really thought about it as anything other than a social activity. I thought this reading emphasized what I have been learning in this course, which is that storytelling can be an extremely powerful resource to spread awareness, find shared experiences among people and bring people together. It was interesting to read how storytelling can bring up internal conflict when you are aware who is listening to your story, as well as all the feelings that can be brought up by listening to someone else’s story.
All three of this week’s readings focused on different participatory health techniques and the implementation of said techniques. The first reading was very effective in instructing on four different participatory techniques. According to the author, participation in health communication is meant to shift the power balance present in health communication programs. The author lists four techniques to allow individuals to participate in their health communication: drawings, guided walks, network maps, and life maps. I particularly liked the drawings and life maps, as I could see those strategies easily being implemented during a support group. For example, the Communication Disorders department runs aural rehabilitation groups for those who have hearing loss. Navigating hearing loss can be something that is very emotionally taxing and requires a certain degree of counseling. Involving and invoking patients’ experiences with their hearing loss would be easy to do through a drawing or more particularly a life map, focusing on their time of diagnosis, or their adjustment period to amplification technology such as hearing aids or cochlear implants.
The second reading was very interesting in that it approached the issue of teenage pregnancy in a way that I had never encountered before. Rather than shaming or blaming teenage mothers, this study allowed them to become empowered through body mapping. It seemed to be powerful and empowering to allow the participants to examine their views of their own bodies and self and to examine their goals and dreams.
Finally, the third reading showed how narratives might be beneficial outside the sphere of health communication, but rather in mediating social conflict. Using TRT techniques for group storytelling, the researchers united a group of Jewish and Palestinian students, and allowed them to participate in storytelling in order to mediate conflict due to war. The researchers found that the students learned more about each other as well as about the nuances of their own families and groups, and were able to see a different perspective on the other group despite ongoing conflict. This study suggests the social and mediating power of storytelling and narrative-sharing.
The first reading was on participatory research methods and different approaches to engage people in a way that allows them to take a lead role. This article helped set a base for the next two articles we read because they all deal with examples of participatory research methods. I found the four methods really interesting, especially the sketching method. What I liked about these four designs is that by leaving the activity open-ended and general, it allows the participants to choose what to share. What they decide to share is likely going to be what they feel is more important in their lives, which can be very telling of a community, as we saw in the sketching example. I had never thought of drawing as a research method. The combination of drawing and explaining the drawing was very successful and takes pressure off of people to answer specific questions that they may not feel is very relevant. I have never done anything like these methods, but I did conduct two interviews over the summer in order to create testimonials for the All of Us Research Grant. What I liked was that the questions were broad and open-ended. While this is not the same as what we read in this chapter, it did give the interviewees the chance to choose to share what they felt was most important and relevant to them. The end was result was successful and I felt I had learned a lot about these people and the needs of their community.
I think I have read the teen birth article before for my capstone class in undergrad. This article was an interesting example of using a participatory research tool in real life. Here, they used body mapping, which kind of seemed like a form of prompted sketching because the participants had certain questions to answer in combination with drawing. Participants will choose to draw and share what they feel comfortable sharing, but also what they feel is most important in their lives and what they want other people to know. In the case of teen pregnancy, this is especially important because teen parents often get left out of the conversation when it comes to public health campaigns that are supposed to be about them.
The final article we read used storytelling, called To Reflect and Trust (TRT), to work through trauma. Specifically, this started with children of Holocaust victims and children of perpetrators (Nazis). The storytelling format was successful in creating a space to learn to live with the trauma that has happened. They then used an adapted format for Jewish and Palestinian Israeli students, where students would work together to write a join paper based on interviews of their family members. It is really interesting to see examples of facilitators notes from these sessions, and how although the two groups have had conflict, through listening to each other’s stories, they could see common themes. This allowed the two groups to be more empathetic of each other. The main difference between the example with the Holocaust and these students is that these students are in the midst of the conflict, whereas with the other group, the main conflict had already occurred. While reading this article, I was thinking about other conflicts that are currently occurring today, and how a class similar to this would pan out with other groups. I think it can be especially hard to do this with a conflict that is currently occurring because it brings in a new level of difficulty when discussing trauma.
Participatory approaches expand the role of community members in public health work, thus reducing the power imbalance between the community and academic researchers or public health professionals. I think this is really important, because knowledge goes beyond things learned in the classroom or academic setting. Knowledge from experience, especially when considering community health, is arguably more valuable and relevant to inform public health work in a specific community. Community members know what it is like to live in their community or neighborhood and how that experience is impacting health. Without their input the right kinds of public health work might not happen. For example, maybe the heart disease rates are really high in a community so based on the numbers you think you should do some public health campaigns and work around this issue. Yet you find that no one is showing up. If you had talked to community members you could have realized that gang violence is a more immediate and pressing issue in that community; it’s pretty hard to care about heart disease later in life when you are more concerned about your immediate safety. Speaking with the community this case would have saved wasted resources for efforts that are not a priority for folks.
The readings each went over different methods used in the participatory approach. The first reading covered sketching, ethnographic go-along, network mapping, and life mapping. Two that really stuck out to me were the network and life mapping methods. To me, network mapping seems like it could be a really useful tool when trying to determine what organizations in an area are doing “the work†and who is/isn’t working together. This could be especially helpful for someone who is new to a community to orient them and provide some basic knowledge as to who to reach out to for different collaborative projects. The life mapping method was also an interesting approach. I think it can be really insightful to find out what event(s) in someone’s life that they find to be really important to their happiness (or sadness). Some things that others might assume were a high or low point for that person may not have been. This kind of exercise gives great context to someone’s life, especially in addition to life history interviews. The second reading covered body mapping as another method to the participatory approach. This method can also provide a lot of insight into someone’s experiences as it allows participants to highlight what is important to them and their life in a visual way. The last reading covered how storytelling can be used as a method to “work through intractable conflicts.†This article highlighted the advantages and challenges of this approach. The advantages to this approach in this context are very similar to benefits of storytelling we have previously discussed in class. A main challenge the authors found was that this approach is very sensitive to ongoing violent external events.
Participatory approaches in health communication research are deeply rooted in agriculture and rural development and emerged as scholars and practitioners started recognizing the use of nonparticipatory research methods that resulted in a power imbalance between researchers and participants. Figure 17.2 showed the different levels of engagement a community can provide such as a community member being the respondent, as the analyst, or as a researcher. This reading covered the different types of methods used in a participatory approach such as sketching, ethnographic go along network mapping, and life mapping. Some of these seem familiar from the course community development like network mapping. Network mapping gives the tools to the community to use their tools, resources, and connections to create changes in their own communities.
The second reading on teen pregnancy and parenting suggested another approach, body mapping which can be a lens into someone’s life experiences. “Body mapping is an engaging, innovative participatory visual methodology, that involves young parenting women and other marginalized population in drawing out a deeper understanding of sexual health inequities.†(Aline C. Gubrium, Alice Fiddian-Green, Kasey Jernigan & Elizabeth L. Krause (2016): Bodies as evidence: Mapping new terrain for teen pregnancy and parenting, Global Public Health). This study focuses on approaches to decreasing teen pregnancy by using visual methods as evidence to help study teen pregnancy.
The last reading focused on the power of storytelling and the advantages and challenges of using this approach. I am currently working on an oral history project called Tibetan Resettlement Stories: Voices of Boston where the final product is a book that will be published this upcoming November. I along with other first-generation Tibetans have worked on this for the last 5 years collecting the stories of the Tibetan refugees who immigrated to the United States in the 1990s and earlier. Through something simple as storytelling we were able to gather stories on assimilation, cultural preservation, mental health, and other challenges as an immigrant. I am really excited about the final product and through this project, I know how important and powerful storytelling is especially as a tool and a voice for marginalized communities.
There is always time for a story. These readings on participatory health investigation showed that really we should be asking different questions in different ways. What struck me as unique about all three of these readings is that along with collecting valuable data, they also were of benefit to the study participants. From body mapping, sketching, ethnographic go-along, to guided storytelling each experience gave the participants as much if not more as it gave the researchers. How can health care professionals develop more of this model? Engaging individuals about their health, asking different questions, and waiting for the answers. With our priority of brisk efficiency there is hardly any time for these wonderful techniques in the acute care setting, but perhaps primary care physicians and nurses could make good use out of some of these techniques.
It was interesting to me in the second article when they listed all the negative stigmatic themes attached with being a teen mother they didn’t mention anything about the health risks of being a teen mother. I have been taught through nursing school that teen pregnancies are more at risk for placental abruption, spontaneous abortion, postpartum hemorrhage, and many more pregnancy and birth complications. Though looking at these correlational health risks from more of an ecological perspective (Public health model that examines the environmental, political, and personal contributions to health in conjunction with one another) I wonder if they negative health outcomes I have been taught about teen pregnancies is not strictly from the age at which they are pregnant but a combination of the societal factors which have placed these young women in these situation. This article took an ecological perspective when it discussed the negative associations held towards teen moms. What if it’s not being a teen mom that is detrimental but the society that is structured against teen moms?
The first reading focused on four different types of participatory research. The four are sketching, ethnographic go-along, network mapping, and life mapping. To help us better understand each method was explained using a case study. Each of these research cases were interesting. I really found the sketching among the Sudanese people interesting because in some way it eliminated some of the language barriers even though interpreters were still needed. I like the go-along method because it allows for more natural responses because its not necessarily a planned interview and the environment is often a place that the participant is familiar with. I have heard of network mapping before this article; however it was never in terms of health communication I’ve heard it in marketing and business. Despite that, the idea of network mapping was similar which was a nice connection to make. Life mapping is a good starting technique. I believe it allows people to reflect on their life and choose high and low points and very much be a good start to asking follow up questions.
The second reading was my favorite because it focused on teen pregnancy but shaded a different light on it. It gave teen women a voice where there voice us often ignored or deemed not important. Body mapping allowed them to share in a way that they may have felt less vulnerable because usually those dealing with teen pregnancy are naturally dealing with societal scrutiny making them vulnerable as is. I also found this method to be a unique way to approach sexual health because it took into account people’s stories and feelings.
The last reading was more similar to a lot of other readings we have read about storytelling. However what really stood out was the similarity in conflict and how common themes were found.
The common thread I saw in all three readings this week was one of giving the power back to the participants. Whether it was power through art, storytelling, or feeling in control of the research process. As many of our other readings have discussed, including the community members in health communication is necessary for effective and sustainable results. The first reading discussed participatory research approaches and focused on four specific case studies. Participatory research approaches emphasize the generation of power, designed to lead to action, and allows members to become the leaders in the advancement of their community. The reading brought up the importance of this approach because of the differing meanings of “health†in different communities. This is also a topic we have talked about in class; health means different things to different people so in order to influence the health behaviors of a community, those leading the health communication must have a strong understanding of their definition. The case study that interested me the most was the role of participatory sketching. I watched a video on female genital cutting in a human sexuality class I took during undergrad and the people in that video were all strong proponents of the practice and felt it was necessary. It was interesting to see that a radio soap opera had such a large impact that it made some people in Sudan question the practice of female genital cutting. I liked that through the prompt and sketches an otherwise taboo topic was brought up and gave the group a space to talk about it. Having that experience probably made the participants realize they were not alone in their feelings toward female genital cutting and could feel more confident in their decisions.
The second reading also exemplified how art can be used to generate discussion and lead to new ways of developing resources for a population. The body mapping activity concept is fascinating and a unique approach that I had never heard of before. I especially like that it allowed the young parents to address the stereotypes that so often come along with teen pregnancy. It was interesting to read some of the participants’ opinions on the show Teen Moms; I have often wondered how accurate that show really was and how other teen parents felt about it. Representations of teen pregnancy like Teen Moms perpetuates the negative connotations about that population and gives people a false impression of the reality of teen parenthood. Through the results of body mapping activities new questions come up and researchers get a better idea of what support and resources the teen parent population actually needs.
The third reading on storytelling had me thinking a lot about restorative justice as I was reading it. Restorative justice involves the victim, the community, and the offender making amends. That was also the premise of the storytelling workshops for the Palestinian and Jewish students. One of the first things that stuck out to me was that “working through an experience is learning to live with the painful past better than one has up until nowâ€. The goal of the workshops was not to forget or move on from the trauma caused but rather learn to cope with it and hopefully understand the other side of the conflict better, also similar to restorative justice. Workshops like these gives people from opposite sides of a conflict an opportunity to come together to explain their trauma and learn from those who were on the other side of it. I found it interesting when it was brought up that the consequences of social trauma are passed on through generations. The younger generations learned how to deal with the trauma from their elders and often the strategy was to not deal with it all. I think that this sometimes can lead to the younger generations not fully understanding what the conflict was about or what the core root of their anger stems from.
I found the participatory approaches to health communication from this weeks readings quite fascinating. Each text presented unique methods in which a participatory approach can be enacted from a public health perspective. In the first reading, the authors conducted participatory sketches in a group setting as a way to represent personal experiences. This sketches were an effective tool in initiating discussions as well as provide insights on individuals’ experiences for a given health related topic. In this reading, the authors utilized this approach on research participants in Sudan and productive conversations on the topic of female circumcision was the result. This sketching activity created an environment where these Sudanese women could openly discuss their experiences with this subject which may have typically never happened due to the taboo nature of it. I thought that this was a great method to generate conversations around topics that are not typically discussed in order to galvanize some type of activism or awareness.
The second reading utilized body mapping as a participatory health communication approach with teen parents. This method is used as a way to shift attention from negative focus that is often highlighted in the medical model of health that emphasizes an impairment that needs resolution. The focus of these individuals bodies gives them a voice where they otherwise would be constrained by society. In the Hear Our Stories project, body mapping was used with a group of young parenting Latinas in which they told their life stories’ through a body map. Participants were given prompts to respond to artistically on the body map to express their lives. This activity encouraged participants to explore their identity in terms of teen motherhood and the ways in which it has influenced their lives. Similar to the sketching activity from the prior reading, this activity encouraged discussion on taboo topics such as trauma, home insecurity, and interpersonal violence to name a few. This activity emphasizes the individuals; lived experiences as opposed to them being analyzed as the subject for data. In this way, we can generate a greater understand of the lives of these young women. A participatory visual method such as this can be successful in identifying some of the root issues for topics related to health such as teen pregnancy and this information can be used for further public health initiatives
Finally, the last reading used storytelling as a participatory approach and applied it to a Jewish-Palestine student workshop as a way to work through conflict. This technique was compared to the German-Jewish conflict and the tendency of lack of open discussion between generations that lived through the Holocaust and their children. Telling stories can be used as a method to work through such experiences. The goal of such an activity was to initiate communication and develop a shared understanding between two groups that have been known to be at conflict. While in this particular study no arrival to a resolution to the conflict was made, a conversation was ignited that encouraged the participants to seek out further information regarding this longstanding conflict and educate themselves further about this deep history that belongs to their identities.
From all these readings, it seems that participatory approaches have the ability to be very successful in generating conversation and encouraging further activism. Whether or not activism is realistically achieved though is questionable.
This week’s readings focused on participatory methods of research. The Greiner reading explained four different methods of participatory research to supplement traditional interviews: participatory sketching, “going along,” network mapping, and life mapping. These tools appear useful, not just because they help to generate data, but because they help individuals reflect and process their experiences. I wonder how the timing of these tools- either before or after the traditional interview- could alter interview results. I imagine that using these methods before the traditional interview may cause participants to touch on topics that they otherwise may not have thought were significant.
The next article, “Bodies as evidence: Mapping new terrain for teen pregnancy and parenting,” provided an impactful example of participatory action research in practice. Although this study was quite small, what I found most important was how the sessions seemed to empower the participants. The exercises were not just about collecting data; rather, they provided participants ways to process their emotions and experiences. They also helped demonstrate how structural violence and cultural beliefs have tangible impacts on the body. I am interested in learning more about the process of developing these workshops, as I can imagine it may be very difficult to get participants involved in activities like creating art, especially if they don’t believe they can be artistic.
The third reading discussed how storytelling can be used as a tool to help people process traumatic events. Although I understand the concept behind using this strategy, I have to wonder if it was an ethical tool in this situation. It seemed like the Palestinian Israeli students were in a more precarious position than the Jewish participants; for example, the lack of support from Jewish students during the Palestinian moment of silence was described as being a “traumatic experience” for the Palestinian participants. Additionally, the Palestinians were concerned about their stories being used as fuel for the university to discriminate against them. It seems like the experience did lead to new understanding and new relationships being formed, but I wonder if these outcomes were worth the costs.
This week’s readings were on participatory approaches to health communication. One approach that the first reading touched on was participatory sketching. When the authors said asking adults to draw is not easy made me think about a time when my job asked our elderly residents to draw. I work at an assisted living place on weekends and one activity we had was an art therapist came in and asked the residents to draw a tree that symbolizes their lives. At first it was very hard for them to understand why they were doing this and what their tree would even look like. After a while, they created these beautiful trees that had an even more beautiful and allowed me to understand them in a different way. I think drawing or participatory sketching could be very powerful to understand participants and people in general.
The reading that appealed to me most was the one on body mapping. Body mapping allows participants to express themselves and answer questions in a different way. The quote, “The body mapping process stands out as an innovative approach for acknowledging and incorporating the multifaceted nature of people’s lives, and recognises the limitations of traditional research methods and approaches to assessing and addressing health inequities†resonated with me because I believe it is important for us to see different dimensions of an individual so we can better understand their life course. The Hear Our Stories project seems so powerful and empowering. I really enjoyed reading about the process the participants went through while body mapping such as how they connected one point of their life to another and how they visually showed the themes of trauma and support systems. I have seen many people who I grew up with express their trauma through art such as song making and graffiti art.