“Worth a Thousand Words” - Stress reduction in post-Katrina New Orleans among women through a combined PhotoVoice and Freirian Praxis methodology approach

Stress and associated physical and mental health symptoms are emerging public health challenges in post-Katrina New Orleans. Some community and individual determinants of post disaster stress include female gender, educational level, unemployment status, and the loss of property, friend and/or family member. The Worth a Thousand Words (WATW) pilot project; eight women, 50-90 years of age were trained on camera usage and the power of the visual image. Equipped with cameras they took pictures based upon three prompts relating to assets, needs, and self-identified stress management approaches in post-Katrina New Orleans. For each prompt the participants took 3-8 pictures. In a weekly “share session” they interpreted both their own and each others pictures. At the end of the six weeks a community photo exhibition was organized to showcase the women's “best” picture(s) and to give them the opportunity to publicly share their experience. After going through this process, participants recommended a stress-management approach that would incorporate elements of faith, celebration of New Orleans culture and geography, as well as social activity. The WATW pilot project demonstrates the applicability of an untraditional approach in addressing stress-related issues in post-disaster communities. The session will describe this original project and related qualitative data in detail.