Boston Program Highlights Racial Health Disparities Through Visual Art Exhibit

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 14 Nov 2007 - 9:00 PDT

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A photo exhibition highlighting health disparities in the Boston area will be on display starting Tuesday, the Boston Globe reports. The no-cost photo exhibition, "Community Voices: A Photo Essay on Health Disparities in Roxbury," will be presented at the John D. O'Bryant African-American Institute at Northeastern University.

Several high school students participated in the program, which was sponsored by the university's Center for Community Health Education, Research and Services and funded by Johnson & Johnson and the Society for Arts in Healthcare. The Boston Health Careers Academy, the Boston Area Health Education Center and artists from ACT Roxbury also helped contribute to the CCHERS program.

Under the program, students for seven weeks studied and documented health care disparities in their communities by analyzing published reports and working with three local community centers. The students -- who all expressed an interest in health care -- developed their own project topics, which included diabetes, asthma, HIV/AIDS, midwifery and teenage pregnancy, and racism in the delivery of health care. The students were then trained in photography, writing and interviewing to document their experiences. Katherine Rushfirth, coordinator of the program at CCHERS, also invited guest speakers to discuss several chronic diseases most commonly afflicting blacks and Hispanics.

Deneen Roberts, a program participant whose project featured a photo of a white man and two Hispanic children looking at a model of a clogged artery at a local health fair, said the program "emphasized the fact that our DNA is 99% the same," adding, "It's those small differences that can cause problems" (Fahey, Boston Globe, 11/11).

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