About | Monitoring and Evaluation in Art for Social Change

Input from Art for Social Change (ASC!) co-researchers and partners

Feedback obtained at the annual retreats (Banff 2014, Vancouver 2015, and Calgary 2016)
Several review sessions with Judith Marcuse , as well as others from the ASC! co-researchers, partners and Advisory Committee
Considerable material offered by ASC! research assistant and doctoral student Shira Taylor , especially for the methodological section
Critical insights offered by Dr. Jennifer Spiegel , ASC! Post Doctoral Research Fellow and critical theorist

Urban renewal in Cuba

A multi-sectoral intervention (1995-1999) in the inner-city of Central Havana, Cuba

Background:

170,000 inhabitants in an area of 3.5 km² (highest population density in the country)
High level of chronic disease and violence

Intervention: Housing, municipal infrastructure, and social and cultural activities.

Mixed-methods evaluation approach:

Interviews of key informants as well as community members
Extensive household survey pre-and post-intervention and a comparison community
Three community workshops to choose indicators for evaluating effectiveness and discuss findings

The key lessons learned:

Extensive community involvement enhances and gives credibility to the evaluation
Arts and culture are taken quite seriously

Publications

View some of our publications from this project.

Arts-based methods in environmental health education

Major CIDA-funded partnership between 4 universities in Ecuador and UBC to “build capacity in environmental health”

Intervention:

Sociodrama to discuss environmental degradation in the Amazon attributable to Texaco-Chevron
Videography

The key lesson learned:

Researchers skilled in the arts and humanities are needed in these collaborations

Publications

View some of our publications from this project.

Antimicrobial resistance in Ecuador

Arts-based approach to addressing misuse of antimicrobial agents in Ecuador, as well as other environmental issues:

Background:

Major environmental health concerns
Health problem due to lack of knowledge, facilities, funds for proper dosages, access to healthcare as well as public misconceptions about antimicrobial drugs
In low and middle-income countries the transmission of bacteria is high due to social and environmental factors

Intervention:

Certificate program within ecosystem approach to health international collaboration, including role-play
Multiple community-based educational programs including puppet shows, photovoice and street parades with dance, music, circus arts and theatre

Mixed-methods evaluation approach:

Numerous approaches
Including intervention controlled trial (one class of 9-10 year old girls received education about bacteria and the other on a completely different topic) with pre-versus-post survey testing knowledge and attitudes.
Also drawings

The key lessons learned:

Arts can be shown to be useful in community-based interventions
There is a useful role for art-based methods in evaluation
Researchers skilled in the arts and humanities are needed in these collaborations

Publications

View some of our publications from this project.

Tuberculosis and HIV stigma in Southern Africa

Background:

Healthcare workers in South Africa have among the highest rates of tuberculosis in the world, due to occupational exposures and compounded by stigma and denial

Intervention:

A cluster randomised controlled trial in 27 Free State hospitals to strengthen occupational health and infection control and to improve healthcare worker access to HIV and TB services in the workplace in accordance with new guidelines. The initiatives include:

Formal training program with projects
Workplace assessment training: using role-play as well as onsite practice with guide books
Sophisticated information system
Clinical support for identifying and treating

An important component of the project is stigma reduction. Combating stigma and denial required an arts-based approach.

Key lesson learned:

Complex problems need to be addressed – and evaluated – from the head, hands and heart.

Publications

View some of our publications from this project.

Social circus in Ecuador

Background:

Social circus uses circus arts for social justice and social good, with youth who are marginalized or at social or personal risk
Our interdisciplinary intercultural team combined arts and humanities with social and health sciences

Intervention:

Ecuador's social circus programs are currently offered to street-involved youth, as well as children from marginalized communities and adults with disabilities

Transdisciplinary Analysis

Context (history and political economy): Exploitation and poverty, and the new government philosophy of Buen Vivir, combined with the growing social circus movement worldwide, led to the launch of Circo Social Ecuador.
Pedagogy (Art education): Focusing on “social” over “circus”, democratic process over performance product, and group solidarity over individual achievement is what characterizes CS Ecuador
Partnerships (“Arts for Social Change” and other community-based practice)
Individual and Collective Experience (Ethnography/Cultural Theory)
Mental Health Survey (Quantitative health research- pre/post survey of 438 social circus participants with comparison group): Community arts engagement improves personal growth, social inclusion and social engagement, as well as attitudes and practice towards school completion, work, substance use, diet and physical fitness, among other indicators of physical and emotional health – with social circus, especially where a progressive vision is embraced, having significantly better outcome than other community arts activities, especially for those most in need.
Performative Inquiry (Arts-based research methods): Embodied exercises help reveal attitudes and feelings that are not easily expressed verbally. Our analysis in previous chapters was confirmed and deepened using these methods.
Photovoice

Publications

View some of our publications from this project.

Insights from working with critical theorists

Two recent collaborations particularly informed this work:

Working with Jennifer Spiegel and Ecuadorean scholars to develop a critical mixed method approach to studying social circus in Quebec and Ecuador; and
A new collaboration with Blake Poland, Katherine Frohlich, Trevor Hancock and other health promotion scholars who emphasize the importance of social context in evaluating community-based health promotion projects.

Some of our publications from this project:

Spiegel JM, Alegret M, Clair V, Pagliccia N, Martinez B, Bonet M, Yassi A. Intersectoral action for health at a municipal level in Cuba. International J Public Health. 2011 Aug 16.
Pagliccia N, Spiegel J, Alegret M, Bonet M, Martinez, Yassi A. Network analysis as a tool to assess the intersectoral management of health determinants at the local level: Astudy of two Cuban municipalities. Social Science & Medicine. 2010 Jul;71(2):394-9.
Spiegel JM, Garcia M, Bonet M, Yassi A. Learning together: A Canada-Cuba research collaboration to improve the sustainable management of environmental health risks. Canadian J Public Health. 2006. Jan-Feb;97(1):50-5.
Spiegel JM, Yassi A. Lessons from the margins of globalization: appreciating the Cuban health paradox. Journal of Public Health Policy. 2004;25(1):85-110.
Yassi A, Fernandez N, Fernandez A, Bonet M, Tate RB, Spiegel JM. Community participation in a multisectoral intervention to address health determinants in an inner-city community in central Havana. J Urban Health. 2003 Mar; 80(1): 61–80.
Spiegel JM, Yassi A, Mas P, Tate R. Dengue in Cuba: mobilization against Aedes aegypti. Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2002;2(April):207-208.
Fernández N, Tate R, Bonet M, Cañizares M, Mas P, Yassi A. Health risk perception in the inner city community of Centro Habana, Cuba. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health. 2000;6:34-43.

Some of our publications from this project:

Spiegel JB, 2011. Ecological Knowledge and the New Pedagogical Theatre: Globality, Biopolitics and Theatricality, chapter three in Staging Ecologies: The Politics of Theatricality and the Production of Ecological Subjectivities, Doctoral Thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Spiegel JM, Breilh J, Beltran E, Parra J, Solis F, Yassi A, et al. Establishing a community of practice of researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and communities to sustainably manage environmental health risks in Ecuador. BMC International Health and Human Rights. 2011 Nov 8;11 Suppl 2:S5.
Parkes MW, Spiegel J, Breilh J, Cabarcas F, Huish R, Yassi A. Building sustainable capacity to promote the health of marginalized populations through international collaboration: Examining community-oriented training innovations in Ecuador. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 2009 April; 87(4): 245-324
Spiegel JB, Yassi A. Theatre of Alliances? Role-play, Representation and Ecohealth in Ecuador. Theatre Topics. 17(2)P: 129-140, 2007.

Some of our publications from this project:

Murray M, Quizhpe A, Yassi A, DeBoos J, Spiegel JB, Calle K. Fear, wonder and learning: Reimagining the Human-Microbe Story. Antennae. Special issue: Summer 2016. Issue 36. 104-134.

Selected publications from this project:

Parent, S. N., Ehrlich, R., Baxter, V., Kannemeyer, N., & Yassi, A. (2017). Participatory theatre and tuberculosis: A feasibility study with south african health care workers. The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, 21(2), 140-148.
Yassi A, Zungu M, Kistnasamy B, Spiegel JM, Lockhart K, Jones D, Nophale L, O’Hara LM, Bryce EA, Darwin L. Protecting health workers from infectious disease transmission: An exploration of a Canadian-South African partnership of partnerships. Globalization and Health. 2016.
Engelbrecht MC, Yassi A, Spiegel JM, Janse van Rensburg A, O’Hara LM, Bryce EA, Nophale LE, Rau A. Tuberculosis and blood-borne infectious diseases: Workplace conditions and practices of healthcare workers at three public hospitals in the Free State. Southern African Journal of Epidemiology and Infection. May 2015
Spiegel J, Yassi A, Rau A, Buxton JA, Wouters E, Engelbrecht MC, Uebel KE, Nophale LE. Workplace Interventions to Reduce HIV and TB Stigma among Healthcare Workers –Where do we go from here? Global Public Health. 2015 Mar 13:1-13.
Nkoki LG, Spiegel JM, Rau A, Parent S, Yassi A. Reducing the risks to healthcare workers from blood and body fluid exposure in a small rural hospital in Thabo Mofutsanyana, South Africa. Workplace Health & Safety. 2014. 62(9): 382-388
Khan R, Yassi A, Engelbrecht M, Nophale L, van Rensburg A, Spiegel JM. Barriers to HIV counselling and testing uptake by health workers in three public hospitals in Free State Province, South Africa. AIDS Care. 2014 Aug 30:1-8
Yassi A, O’Hara LM, Engelbrecht MC, Uebel K, Nophale LE, Bryce EA, Buxton JA, Siegel J, Spiegel JM. Considerations and Dilemmas in Preparing a Randomized Population Health Intervention Trial: Lessons from a South African-Canadian Partnership to Improve HIV and Tuberculosis Prevention and Care for Health Workers. Global Health Action. 2014 7; 23594
Liautaud A, Yassi A, Engelbrecht MC, O’Hara LM, Rau A, Bryce EA, Spiegel JM, Uebel K, Zungu M, Roscoe D, Janse van O’Hara LM, Bryce EA, Scharf S, Yassi A. Innovative training for occupational health and infection control workplace assessment in healthcare: Necessity as the mother of invention. American Journal of Health Education. January/February 2012. 43(1): 57-61.

Some of our publications to date:

Spiegel JB. 2014. Social Circus as an Art for Social Change: Promoting Social Inclusion, Social Engagement and Cultural Democracy. In Keklainen (ed.) Studying Social Circus: Openings & Perspectives. University of Tampere.
Spiegel JB. 2016. Social Circus as Ethico-Aesthetic Practice: the cultural politics of embodying “social transformation” through a collective creation process. TDR: The Drama Review.
Spiegel JB, Breilh M, Campana A, Marcuse J, Yassi A. 2015. Social Circus and Health Equity: Results of a feasibility study to explore the national social circus program in Ecuador. Arts & Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice. 7, 65-74.
Spiegel JB, Ortiz B, editors. 2018. The Art of Collectivity. McGill-Queens University Press.