The Teen Photovoice Project is a community-based participatory research empowerment education program. The project recruited thirteen minority high school students from three parts of Los Angeles City who were brought together by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion to serve as a Youth Advisory Board Council. Using a Photovoice methodology driven by Freirian Theory, participants used digital still cameras to explore what they think influences their health behaviors.

The participants worked in three clusters over several months to identify one issue that they explored in depth as a group, and each group created a poster (see below) to advocate around this identified issue.

Both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to understand group discussions on pictures, personal narratives, product development, group dynamics, community feedback, and individual measures of empowerment and behavior. This study may offer a unique perspective into the influences of health behaviors identified by adolescents.

The project officially started on January 15th, 2004 with the distribution of digital cameras to the sixteen participating students. Data analysis is now complete, and Dr. Necheles currently is writing up the results for publication.

Key Participants: Jonathan Necheles
See Slideshow of Project Documentation
Funding: Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program