Developing an antiracist lens: using photography to facilitate public health critical race praxis in a foundational MPH course
Open accessAbstract
Racism is a critical determinant of health that affects outcomes; shapes practice, policy, research, and interventions; and disproportionately burdens nondominant racial populations. The racial justice challenges of today, combined with persistent health inequities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have intensified the need for racial equity–minded public health professionals. Because training programs play a key role in developing professionals, they must center teaching about racism and promoting antiracism within their curricula. The critical race theory–grounded strategy Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP) provides a useful framework, calling for examination of how racism operates within individuals and the systems, such as public health, in which they work. Foundational public health courses provide a vital opportunity to launch such an examination and lay the groundwork for antiracism praxis. This article offers a curricular model that integrates PCHRP with a creative approach to facilitate exploration of racial identity among public health students. Students in our course use photography and written reflections to create dual portraits, one depicting how they see themselves and the other imagining how they might be seen by others in our racialized society. Our pedagogical process prompts critical self-reflection about racial identity, a crucial foundation for addressing the health consequences of structural racism. Spurred by creative inquiry, students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds tell us that our course boosts their racial consciousness, enhances their understanding and ability to engage diverse communities, equips them to see and name racism in the public health context, and galvanizes them to work toward dismantling it.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The snowballing methodology used in this scoping review produced only one additional article, likely because four of the ten articles identified as "ideal candidates" have not received any reported citations.
“Due to the late onset of these publications, the snowballing methodology used in this scoping review produced only one additional article likely due to four of the ten articles identified as “ideal candidates” have not received any reported citations (43, 45, 46, 52).”
From Exploring public health education’s integration of critical race theories: A scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as [45]
More than half of the identified articles were published after 2020.
“It is essential to recognize that more than half of the identified articles were published after 2020 (45, 46, 50, 51, 59, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68).”
From Exploring public health education’s integration of critical race theories: A scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as [45]
Only four included articles had an explicit positionality statement by the author(s); two of these had ambiguity about whether the positionality was the author(s)' or the instructor's.
“Only four articles had an explicit positionality statement by the author(s) (43–46); however, two of these had some relative ambiguity whether the positionality reported was that of the author(s) or if it was simply relaying the positionality of the instructor they were reporting on.”
From Exploring public health education’s integration of critical race theories: A scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as [45]
Lightfoot and colleagues described a photography and written reflections-based activity in a Master of Public Health course to facilitate student exploration of racial identity, and BIPOC students were identified as readily able to discuss their racialized identities compared to White counterparts who found the assignment new and somewhat difficult.
“The other article that offered a curricular model using the PHCR praxis was Lightfoot and colleagues (45) description of a creative, photography and written reflections-based activity employed in a Master of Public Health course to facilitate student exploration of racial identity.”
From Exploring public health education’s integration of critical race theories: A scoping review (2023) · cites this paper as [45]
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 39 · Cited by 14
- Authors
- Lightfoot, A. F., Efird, C. R., & Redding, E. M.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Corresponding author
- Lightfoot, Alexandra F.
- Venue
- Pedagogy in Health Promotion
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2021-12
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 317-326
- ISSN
- 2373-3799 (ISSN-L)
- 2373-3802
- OpenAlex
- W4200377153
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 2.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Pedagogy in Health Promotion (publishedVersion)
- Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) (submittedVersion)
- UNC Libraries
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Public Health Policies and Education
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Critical Race Theory in Education
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
- Keywords
- anti-racism, critical race theory, Public Health Critical Race Praxis, photography in education, racial identity, public health education, structural racism, health disparities, racial consciousness, self-reflection, creative inquiry, COVID-19 pandemic
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
