Analysis of stock photos of farmworkers

Researchers Dr. Joseph Lee, Abdul Zahra and Jose Robles represented East Carolina University for a project with N.C. State University that showed a lack of useful materials and stock photos available that do not represent the people who work in agriculture.

Their full paper was published in the Journal of Agromedicine.

An example of farming in North Carolina. (ECU News photo)

Zahra is an ECU Honors College/Bachelor or Science in public health graduate in the College of Health and Human Performance. Lee is a professor in the Department of Health Education and Promotion and HHP’s associate dean for research.

“Representation matters, and it is important to be able to see yourself in photos,” Lee said. “It’s also important to be able to see specific work tasks and hazards in agricultural work. I hope this research will help us do a better job with both.”

Robles is a Brody School of Medicine student.

The NCSU/ECU research team identified and analyzed stock photos in three databases: Adobe Stock Images, Canva and Getty Images.

Results included that of the 104 photos including a person, 66 contained a visible face; and that a majority of farming activities represented in photos were of manual labor, not with depictions of equipment, hazards and protective equipment or clothing.

The paper’s conclusion states: “Health and safety professionals tasked with developing materials for education in agricultural settings face a severe lack of imagery pertinent to the realistic conditions of farmworkers in the United States. In the databases we reviewed, photos displaying human faces, photos showing a range of skin tones and ages, and photos displaying an array of different farm hazards are likely not sufficient for material development. Health and safety professionals may benefit from sharing photos from their own work with other professionals and allocating resources for professional photo shoots in their material development projects.”