Evaluating Photo-Maps as tools for education, research, and empowerment

WITH~USS (Women's Independence Through Health ~ Universal Screening Solutions) is a multi-component research project conducted within a partnership between the Center for Independent Living of North Central Florida and the University of Florida's (UF) Public Health Program. The overarching goal of WITH~USS is to explore and improve breast health screening access for women with physical disabilities.

During in-depth interviews, participants (women with disabilities and health care providers) revealed several factors that make breast health screening easy or difficult. To literally “show and tell” about these factors within the context of an actual health care or mammography visit, four women, with contributions from their health care providers, created digital photographs and audio-memos that were merged to create narrated slideshows called Photo-maps. These Photo-maps are now available to the public via a secure, interactive website for viewing and evaluation for their potential as tools for education, research and empowerment.

To address the dearth of opportunities for disability-related training and education for health care providers, continuing medical education credit was offered to all health care providers (medical doctors, nurses, radiology professionals) who completed the evaluation. In addition, via a small grant through the UF College of Medicine, the Photo-maps were viewed and evaluated by first and second year medical students as part of a WITH~USS-informed disability module.

In this session we will share findings from the evaluation of these Photo-maps and discuss implications of using Photo-maps and other visual or multimedia methods for future disability-related education, research, and empowerment endeavors.