Latinos

A total of four group photo sessions were held. Initially, following standard protocols with photovoice in other settings, the research team worked with the group to identify photo assignments (i.e., topic of the next session). In the first two group sessions, the topics were diabetes (Session 1) and cholesterol (Session 2). After reflecting on the process as a research team, it was determined that a more proactive and structured approach was needed if the process was going to elicit in-depth dialog. In response, for Sessions 3 and 4, the research team developed a series of 10 possible questions that the photovoice group could choose from. The men in the group agreed to the compromise. The men chose two questions: for Session 3, “As a Latino man living in Ottumwa, what have you lost or gained in the process of moving/immigrating to the United States?/Como hombre Latino viviendo en Ottumwa, ¿Qué has perdido o ganado en el proceso de mudarte/inmigrar a los Estados Unidos?” and for Session 4, “What does working or your work mean in your life and your health?/¿Qué significa trabajar o su trabajo, en su vida y para su salud?”
Photo sessions were preceeded by 15 to 20 minutes of casual conversation, updating each other on family events, local politics, gossip, and work issues while eating. The photo session then would start as a natural process of moving the discussion to a review on concepts that emerged from the previous photo-discussion, followed by an in-depth discussion on each participant’s photographs based on the photo assignment decided upon during the previous photo session. Following this discussion, the conversation began to be more structured via the use of the six key questions linked by the SHOWED process (Wallerstein & Bernstein, 1994 (link)) or VENCER in Spanish (see Baquero et al., 2014 , or Rhodes et al., 2015 (link), for a detailed description of the VENCER process). Not all men brought photos; some of the photos were pictures they downloaded from the internet. The group chose one or two photos to discuss more profoundly. Per this process, the questions progressed from descriptive observations to critical analysis and action, which included “What do you See in the photo?”, “What is really Happening here?”, “How does this relate to our lives?”, “Why does this situation exist/occur?”, “How can we become empowered to do something about it?”, and “What can we do about this situation”? After the final group photo session, the group continued to meet to work together to further refine findings and key themes and to organize and finalize a community forum (Figure 1). A total of nine men participated, and six attended all the sessions. The main reason for dropping out was that meeting time would conflict with job schedules.

Researchers find it difficult to recruit Latino men, especially for longitudinal studies and in rural communities (Eakin et al., 2006 (link); Rodriguez et al., 2006 (link); Tucker et al., 2010 (link)). Following community advice, we relied on the three aforementioned men to recruit other men into our project. In initial meetings with our recruiters/staff, we made several decisions about the project, which included where and when we would meet, that we would provide dinner, and that the meetings would be in Spanish. The recruiters met and discussed who they would invite. The team, now including the local staff, decided that only the recruiters would contact men to participate. Eligibility criteria included being male, older than 18 years, and living in the rural Iowa city town.