Use of a participatory data analysis process in a PhotoVoice project with tenants of a housing first permanent housing site

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach to research in which community members are engaged throughout the research process (Israel et al., 1998).  Examples of community members actively participating in various stages of the research process, particularly in identifying the research question, collecting data, and interpreting results, have been presented.  There has previously been little detail provided about how community members – including members of communities that are low-income and low-literacy with high prevalence of mental illness and substance abuse - can be actively engaged in analyzing qualitative data. 

The NSO/Bell-OU Partnership is a CBPR partnership between Neighborhood Services Organization and Oakland University.  In 2014, the NSO/Bell-OU Partnership implemented a PhotoVoice project with tenants of the Bell Building, a single-site permanent housing facility for individuals who had been chronically homeless and who have a disability diagnosis.  The Bell Building uses a Housing First approach to services, in which the goal is to get individuals into stable housing before addressing other issues, such as substance use, mental health, or physical health issues. 

In this presentation, we will describe our process for engaging research participants in the data analysis stage of this study.  We will discuss challenges (e.g., challenges with IRB approval, engaging individuals with low-literacy skills) and benefits (e.g., addition of new codes relevant to participants to codebook, increase in trustworthiness of data, enthusiastic response of participants and further investment in the CBPR partnership) of this participatory data analysis process.  Recommendations for such a process will be discussed.