STEUBENVILLE — University of California, Berkley, Public Health Researcher Ryan Petteway has his own ideas about how environment shapes health and opportunities for residents of public housing, ideas shaped in large part during his own years growing up

But the Steubenville native didn’t want his perceptions to shape the results of his research. So, instead of just drafting a list of questions he could ask people in his hometown for a survey, Petteway opted instead for what he calls a “photo-voice study.”

Photo-voice is a technique used with marginalized populations — people who typically don’t have a voice, particularly in the political arena. It uses photography, critical dialogue and personal experience to gauge the issues and concerns shaping their lives.

“I didn’t really want to shape it through my perspective, so using photo voice allows participants to have control over that,” said Petteway, a 2002 Big Red graduate who grew up in what is now known as Heritage Place. “Instead of me coming up with questions and then going out and asking people in the community to answer them, for this project I wanted to allow them to control the narrative. The people who are part of the study are in control of the results. My role was to train them so they can (find their voice).”

Petteway published his findings, “Intergenerational photovoice perspectives of place and health in public housing: Participatory coding, theming and mapping in/of the ‘structure struggle,'” in Elsevier’s Health and Place Journal in November.

“Usually this type of research happens where there’s a big research university,” Petteway said. “But Steubenville doesn’t have a big research university. This is the first time they were involved in research, and it was important that they actually have control over the process.”

Traditional research methods are faster, “but it’s not really inclusive and I don’t think it’s really fair.”

Petteway prefers community-based participatory research. “Part of the process is working with community residents as collaborators,” he said. “Community-based participatory research builds relationships, it builds trust and rapport. You train them to be collaborators and researchers. With CBPR, you build relationships over time, then you start the research process.”

Once trained, collaborators were encouraged to look at their community with a critical eye — not just identifying its shortcomings and assets, but also reflecting on the cause and effect of what they see.

“What we did was train teenagers and low-income residents to become public researchers, to get them to identify concerns and opportunities (they see in their community),” Petteway said.

“When you’re poor and live in public housing, things like crime, shootings, vacant lots, pollution, your heat getting cut off — these are things you adapt to and accept as a normal part of your life,” he added. “But a process like this allows folks to critically reflect on (what they’re experiencing), hit pause, step back and reflect.”

Petteway said problems plaguing communities tend to be self-evident, like vacant buildings, a shortage of affordable housing and crime.

“Everybody is aware of them, so I don’t think we need research to show what specific problems are,” he said. “This research is about how we can get youths and adults to be a part of the conversation — how we can get public housing and low- income residents in particular to be part of the conversation.”

He said the results were “pretty clear, what we suspected: The idea that the places we live, they matter for our health.”

“Where we live is really important, not just in quality of housing but how it affects our opportunity to do other things. When I grew up (at Heritage Place), the air quality was bad, we didn’t have transportation and there were no supermarkets (nearby). So living there, not being able to afford to live somewhere else, you don’t have a lot of food options,” he said. “That’s what the research ended up showing, that the place of residence is important, but where the schools are, where the pharmacies and parks are and that type of thing also is important.”

He said while the adults participating in the study tended to focus on problems and challenges, young people “actually identified positive things, like Big Red.”

“The youths, surprisingly, at the end of the project actually prioritized focusing on positive things and making things better,” he said. “They identified problems and concerns they wanted to fix, they identified positive things they wanted to expand on.”

“Adults assume kids are in their own world, that they’re not critical, not really conscious of what’s going on,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of youth research and photo voice… kids have this consciousness, this ability to be critical. They actually have a critical lens and are capable of analyzing the world around them. That’s ultimately what it takes: You have to be aware of things at an early age to figure out how the world works, how to use it to gain influence and power.”

Projects like this one can be building blocks to a stronger community, he points out. Early on, several community leaders were interested in turning the study into a class at Steubenville High School, but when those individuals left their positions interest waned.

“Projects like this, in order to build and sustain something, take a lot of time and energy,” he said. “I’d still really like to see this turned into a class, but I’ve learned in the process those things take time.

“Everybody in the city knows its problems,” he added. “But who is part of the conversation and is it inclusive? There was a mapping element to the project so if they identified certain concerns, we’d have something to focus on to make things better. Ultimately, that was the idea of working with the school (to turn the research into a class).”

Petteway said he’d like the conversation to be ongoing and “continual.”