From photos to policy: Using photovoice to drive change for nurse wellbeing during emergencies

Background: Health emergencies expose systemic weaknesses and everyday realities that are often invisible to policymakers. Photovoice, a participatory action research method in which participants document their lived experiences through photographs and narrative, offers a powerful means of surfacing these realities and translating them into actionable policy recommendations.

Methods: We conducted a photovoice study with frontline nurses to capture their wellbeing experiences during and after the recent pandemic, including contextual influences, coping strategies, and barriers and facilitators to service access. Participants photographed their work environments and daily challenges, followed by structured dialogues to identify key themes. Findings were co-interpreted with participants and key stakeholders and then used to co-design concrete recommendations, including a targeted policy brief and an intervention playbook containing a practical action plan.

Results: Photovoice generated vivid, participant-driven evidence of critical issues faced by nurses during health emergencies. Participants selected priority photographs for advocacy and co-created a photo exhibition to present findings to hospital managers and policymakers. Engagement sessions with participants and key stakeholders facilitated the co-development of individual, interpersonal, organisational, and system-level recommendations to inform future policy aimed at promoting nurse wellbeing during emergencies.

Conclusion: Photovoice functions not only as a descriptive research tool but also as a lever for individual, interpersonal, organisational, and system-level policy change. By pivoting nurses visual and narrative evidence and involving them directly in advocacy activities such as exhibitions and intervention playbooks, photovoice can bridge the gap between lived experience and policy action in health emergencies. This approach offers a replicable model for participatory, evidence-informed policy development in both crisis and non-crisis health settings.