Poetry and Photovoice combined to replace negative outdoor messages on billboards.

Project HEAL Health Impact Assessment Part I: One Poem At A Time

Billboards for drug sniffing dogs, cheap lawyers, gun shows, pay cash for your house.

Through IDEAS xLab’s work with Project HEAL, we came to understand that just as lead puts an environmental toxin into an environment, negative and predatory messages can put a social toxin into the environment.

In other words, the images we see every day impact our health, our beliefs and how we see ourselves and relate to communities around us.

One Poem At A Time, created by artist and IDEAS xLab team member Hannah Drake — replaced 19 billboards in 2017 in Smoketown with positive historical and contemporary images of people and places, paired with one-line poems written with community members.

“The power is in the people,” says Hannah Drake about One Poem At A Time. “But sometimes you have to show people they have the power to change anything they want to.”

Our goal, through One Poem At A Time, is to help people envision what implementing a policy that restricts predatory advertising in communities that are in the process of reviving and rebuilding could look like.

On April 1, 2017 — One Poem At A Time launched with a historic poetry walk in Smoketown lifting up the history and cultural heritage of the 151-year-old community. The walk brought together community residents and stakeholders, along with artists and policymakers to further the discussion around using the community’s collective power to advocate for such a policy change.

As outlined in the HIA, “The research shows that changing the density and content of the negative messaging most likely will serve as a health protective factor influencing the emotional well-being of the community as well as the community’s perceived value by outsiders.”

The Health Impact Assessment was authored by the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness, IDEAS xLab, and the Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky, with additional support from the Health Impact Project — a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, with funding from the Kresge Foundation.

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