Using Fotonovelas to Promote Healthy Eating in a Latino Community

AN IDENTIFIED NEED EXISTS for culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate health literacy strategies for Latinos. These photos are the product of a community based participatory research project to create a fotonovela—a graphic novel familiar to and popular with many Latinos—to support healthy eating in Latino families. The collaboration between Centro De La Comunidad Unida/United Community Center (UCC) and the Medical College of Wisconsin began with a series of focus groups held at UCC. Latinos living in the community expressed concern that available health education materials were unattractive, difficult to read, and poorly translated. However, participants also indicated interest in learning more about obesity and obesity-related chronic conditions. Like other Latinos nationwide, they lacked culturally and linguistically appropriate nutrition materials to address this issue.

Our research team worked alongside community members to create a fotonovela (see next page). Participating community members actively shaped the content and issues in the fotonovela to ensure it was relevant to the culture, ethnicity, gender, social class, and language of the community and specific to identified community health needs. Group discussion and problem solving were inherent in developing the fotonovela. Contributing community team members cooperatively shared ideas and discussed life situations and health concerns to create the story line. The final product conveys ideas and information that other community members can relate to and apply in their own families. This approach empowers the community by encouraging members with few resources to communicate specific individual and general community health concerns.

Esperanza Para La Salud: Pasos Para una Alimentacion Saludable (Hope for Health: Steps to Healthy Eating). Source. Centro de la Comunidad Unida (United Community Center).

During a 14-month period in 2009 and 2010, a group of women came together at the UCC to learn about health and nutrition. These women were given cameras and used their newly gained knowledge to create this story about one family's discovery of healthy habits. The fotonovela was set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and all photos and individuals depicted in the fotonovela come from the community surrounding UCC. The fotonovela includes nutrition information, a recipe, and community-based nutrition and health resources. The overarching goal of this fotonovela is to prevent chronic disease by teaching and developing positive health habits for families. Our team is currently developing two more fotonovelas on critical community topics: depression and dementia caregiving.