“Unmasked to a Positive Triumph”: Women With HIV Share the Benefits of Showing Their Faces Through Photovoice

What Is the Purpose of This Study/Review?

• • To find out why women with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) included selfies among the pictures taken to show what their lives were like.

What Is the Problem?

• • Low-income women with HIV continue to have poor health outcomes and a low quality of life.

• • Plans and strategies to improve their health must include their thoughts and experiences to be applicable and appropriate for them.

• • Research about a community of people that includes the same community as stakeholders is encouraged because doing so creates a sense of mutual ownership and buy-in from all parties.

• • Few participatory research studies exists among women with HIV, but even fewer studies analyze how taking part in such studies affect them as participants.

• • Using Photovoice, the women with HIV took pictures to describe their lives.

• • Many women chose to include their faces in the pictures and the researchers sought to determine why they made this choice.

What Are the Findings?

• • Partnerships formed among women with HIV, community agencies, and researchers.

• • The participatory approach created an atmosphere of safety and allowed the women with HIV to be open with themselves and others.

• • Of 33 women with HIV, 14 included their faces in the pictures.

• • Reasons for including selfies were to (1) reveal the “real” face of HIV/AIDS, (2) share self-portraits as an act of resistance, and (3) help other women living with HIV.

Who Should Care Most?

• • Researchers who use participatory methods and Photovoice among women with HIV.

• • Women with HIV.

• • Health care providers.

• • HIV care organizations.

Recommendations for Action

• • Continue to include women with HIV in participatory studies that use Photovoice because of the freedom expressed by these participants.

• • Institutional review boards should be flexible when seeking to conceal the identity of individuals with HIV who may desire to reveal themselves to others.

• • Continue to seek more information on how participants experience and benefit from this collaborative process.