Videovoice in the aftermath of disaster: Identifying community health links to the built environment in post-Katrina New Orleans through participatory video

Videovoice is a health advocacy, education, and research methodology through which people get behind video cameras to research issues of concern, communicate their knowledge, and advocate for change. This presentation involves screening a participatory video produced by a community-academic-filmmaker partnership. Using videovoice methodology, this engaged ten New Orleans community partners, who took part in an 18-week training and community assessment. Our research partnership gathered community assessment evidence through video interviews, environmental footage, and footage of community events. Through participatory analysis, we identified several concerns about the health impacts of the built environment in post-Katrina New Orleans, including housing, education, and employment. Partners engaged in a participatory editing process to produce several short (5-7 minute) and one longer (22 minute) films describing these built environment findings. The longer film premiered before more than 200 city leaders and residents in New Orleans, shorter films were viewed by over 4000 people from around the world on YouTube during their first two months online, and the project mobilized the community for advocacy and action on concerns about the built environment. Challenges involved in using videovoice, including privacy issues and cost considerations in a resource poor community, will be discussed. Despite such challenges, this methodology may provide communities hit hard by the shock of natural disaster, by the corrosive effects of long-term social inequities, and/or by public health concerns related to water with the opportunity to build the capacity to produce independent media, equitably engage in research, and advocate for change.