The Bridge for Health Literacy Project is a collaborative project between Bridge for Health and community partners
RedFox Healthy Living Society,
Big Brothers Greater Vancouver and
United Way Lower Mainland to support youth in gaining leadership and life skills contributing to their health and wellbeing. The project will be carried out through the existing
Youth Warrior Program, aimed to enable youth (aged 15-18 years old) to have more control over their health and wellbeing, as well as that of their communities and families.
As health literacy is found to be a crucial aspect in determining and having control over one’s health (e.g. empowerment), the project aims to promote health literacy among youth. To date, health literacy has been largely constructed through an individual, medical lens, in which social factors influencing health seem to be often ignored. The project aims to move health literacy upstream by incorporating the understandings of the importance of the social determinants of health in the health literacy concept (e.g. holistic health literacy).
This Photovoice research project will use a participatory approach to reveal the needs of youth with regard to the social determinants present in their lives affecting their health and giving youth a voice through the use of photography. The goal of the
Bridge for Health Photovoice Health Literacy Research Project to increase the health literacy levels of youth, not only by increasing their critical consciousness through participation in the program, but also by incorporating their knowledge and preferences in the future development of health literacy tools targeted at youth.
The youth participating in this project are asked to capture elements/factors presenting their life which are affecting their health and wellbeing, and that of their families and communities. The photographs taken by the youth will be presented at a
Bridge for Health community event on December 17th at
Vital Health in Kitsilano, where the youth will share their images and the stories behind them!
The Bridge for Health Literacy Project is a three-phase project; the first phase will be carried out by
Marlies Casteleijn, a Graduate student from the Netherlands working on her Master Thesis. We are proud to be working with some global partners on this project, such as leading health literacy experts
Dr. Irving Rootman and
Dr. Kristine Sørensen.
Interested? Stay tuned to hear more about the Bridge for Health Photovoice Health Literacy Project, contact
marlies@bridgeforhealth.org
(Kat Thorsen, 2014)
