Integrating Photovoice and Citizen Science: The Our Voice Initiative in Practice

Community engagement methods like photovoice have allowed researchers to gather and incorporate the experiences and perspectives of community members in their work but have at times faced challenges regarding systematization, accessibility, and scalability. This practice note describes the Our Voice initiative, one example of a community-based participatory research framework that aims to build on photovoice theories and best practices and address these challenges by incorporating the use of a mobile app as well as elements of participatory action-based citizen science to support community-driven data collection, analysis, and advocacy. We explore the application of the Our Voice method and evaluation of multilevel participant and community outcomes across three different Bay Area, California, communities. In doing so, we hope to provide a potential example for practitioners of other community-based participatory research and photovoice-based models to draw from when working with diverse communities to integrate local perspectives and insights in the generation and implementation of sustainable community health improvements.

Community-Based Approaches to Reducing Health Inequities and Fostering Environmental Justice through Global Youth-Engaged Citizen Science

Growing socioeconomic and structural disparities within and between nations have created unprecedented health inequities that have been felt most keenly among the world's youth. While policy approaches can help to mitigate such inequities, they are often challenging to enact in under-resourced and marginalized communities. Community-engaged participatory action research provides an alternative or complementary means for addressing the physical and social environmental contexts that can impact health inequities. The purpose of this article is to describe the application of a particular form of technology-enabled participatory action research, called the Our Voice citizen science research model, with youth. An overview of 20 Our Voice studies occurring across five continents indicates that youth and young adults from varied backgrounds and with interests in diverse issues affecting their communities can participate successfully in multiple contributory research processes, including those representing the full scientific endeavor. These activities can, in turn, lead to changes in physical and social environments of relevance to health, wellbeing, and, at times, climate stabilization. The article ends with future directions for the advancement of this type of community-engaged citizen science among young people across the socioeconomic spectrum.