Collyn Baeder and Zoe Hull Present "Visual Voices" research project at conference in Vancouver, BC
Collyn Baeder, MPH '16 and Zoe Hull, MPH '16, presented "Visual Voices: An Arts-Based Assessment and Comparison of How Aging Maine Adults Perceive Themselves and Feel Perceived by their Health Care Providers" at the conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Baeder is the coordinator and Hull is a research assistant with the School of Community and Population Health.
Baeder and Hull shared findings from their , which comprised several sessions with older adults from the Park Danforth senior living community in Portland. The Visual Voices method uses art activities and group discussions to explore social and developmental questions such as perception, identity and aging. In Vancouver, Baeder and Hull presented the quantitative results of the pre and post-project surveys designed to measure whether participation in the project affected participants' self-efficacy, sense of empowerment and feelings of being heard. They also presented the preliminary qualitative results from analysis of transcripts of the sessions' group discussions.
Co-authors of the presentation were Master of Science in Occupational Therapy 2016 students Adrian Jung, Michaela Hoffman, Rebecca Masterjohn and Virginia Sedarski and faculty mentors Regi Robnett, Ph.D., OTR/L, professor, and Rebecca Boulos, MPH, Ph.D., assistant professor.
The Visual Voices project was funded through the interprofessional student-led mini-grant program of the Interprofessional Education Collaborative, as well as contributions from the Maine Geriatric Education Center.