Field Placement: LA County Department of Public Health: Health Administration Program
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor:
Student Name: Mori
Year: 2008

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s mission is to improve health and they believe in compassionate and quality medical care. Specifically, they provide public and personal health services to over 10 million residents in Los Angeles County. The Health Education Administration program supports the county health education workforce by providing training in health education and promoting professional development and evidence-based best practices for health educators. Further, the program works with health educators in Los Angeles County Programs and in the Service Planning Areas (SPAs) to improve the quality and impact of health education in Los Angeles County. During my fieldwork, I developed a protocol to implement the Photovoice project.  Photovoice is a community empowerment strategy using Paulo Freire’s Critical Consciousness Pedagogy, where participants are given cameras to photograph their everyday lives.  Community needs and common themes are identified in the pictures.  The photographs are presented to policy makers to address community concerns. Furthermore, my work was unique because this Photovoice project does not focus on a geographic or racial/ethnic population.  In this case, the target audience is the health education workforce. Moreover, the purpose of my field studies project was to elucidate health educators’ multifaceted role within the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

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