DESIGNING VISUALS FOR MEMBERS OF INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS IN LAGOS, NIGERIA
Awarded the 2019 Vesalius Trust Research Grant
In a collaboration with Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in their Access to Health initiative, I conducted research on the use of drawing as an empowering educational tool for individuals involved in teaching health topics. Many community members of Lagos, Nigeria have hypertension but have misconceptions of its causes and do not realize the importance of measuring their blood pressure regularly.
This project focused on using drawing to teach the topic of hypertension and provide the health educators in Lagos with an actively engaging and empowering tool to teach and motivate lower-literacy community members about the importance of regularly checking their blood pressure.
Drawing Warm-Up Exercise
Viewers are encouraged to follow along with this video and engage in this exercise to become more comfortable with drawing before viewing the educational blood pressure videos.
The heart cycle and arteries
The heart cycle is discussed and viewers are led through simple steps to draw examples of arteries branching from the heart.
Learning about blood pressure
Using inflatable balloons as an analogy, blood pressure in arteries is discussed through simple drawing steps, as well as the importance of checking your blood pressure regularly and ways to prevent hypertension.
COLLABORATION LINKS
My project is but one piece of a larger project involved in the Access to Health initiative. A collaboration of six Biomedical Visualization students total contributed separate research questions and results to produce a larger project with one cohesive deliverable.