Consultant Ellen Vorder Bruegge explains Hesperian Health Guide's Illustration Database, which provides health educators with powerful images to use in training in a variety of global health areas, including everything from first aid to maternal health.

1. Images Save Lives:
Creating Illustrations for Community-based
Health Education, Training and Practice
Ellen Vorder Bruegge
Hesperian Health Guides
Christian Connections
For International Health
June, 2014

2. Hesperian Health Guides
Hesperian books have been translated into 80+
languages and used in 222 countries / territories.
Where There Is No
Doctor, is arguably
the most widely-used
public health manual
in the world… a text
that has meant
survival for
thousands in the
Third World since the
early 1970s.”
- World Health
Organization

3. • Medically accurate
• WHO approved
• Simple writing
• Heavily illustrated
• Easy to understand
and use

4. 1. Start from people’s own experience
2. Offer practical solutions
3. Appreciate the need for compassion and
understanding
4. Encourage participation and action in ways that
do not depend on literacy, and that encourage
critical thinking
Empowering community
health materials…

5. Why use images in
your health materials?
Images improve health outcomes! Images serve
many purposes, all of which improve your health
messaging, especially across languages and literacy
levels.
*Notice that this slide has no images on it- let’s see if we can make this
presentation a bit more accessible and fun using illustrations!

6. Use images to
convey content
Images can:
• Make information
accessible, represent
complex ideas visually
• Illustrate processes,
steps, materials,
positions of the body,
etc.
• Draw attention to
key information

7. Use images to depict
technical content
Show step by step.
Show as much of the
person as is possible,
instead of
disembodied body
parts.
• In the book it appears
as a sequence
• In Hesperian Images they
appear as separate images
tagged with similar words

8. Using images to demystify
medical sequences

9. Main idea images
Replace lengthy text and make content
more appealing.

10. Use images to draw
people in
Images can:
• Make it easier for people to relate to
the information, feel that it reflects
their own experiences
• Highlight feelings about a topic,
provide humor where needed
• Enable a different, more personal
voice than the one used in the text
• Create a sense of dialogue with the
reader

11. What health problems
may be caused by this
community’s use of
water?
Drawings to foster discussion

12. Dialogue drawings
encourage critical thinking

13. Model interactions

14. Interaction images

15. Localization/adaptation

17. Rules of thumb for all health materials
Include people with
disabilities.
Think about people’s
body shape and age.

18. Hesperian Images

19. Using Hesperian Images
• Search for images using
simple or advanced searches.
• Collect, save, share, and
organize images in your
“Lightbox”
• Purchase and download high
quality, hand-drawn
illustrations for prices that
are much lower than
standard stock image sites.

20. www.hesperianimages.org

21. Conduct your search

24. Once you have your images, visit the Hesperian
HealthWiki for health content and messaging
Visit www.hesperian.org and click “Healthwiki”

26. Thank you! Now it’s time to create your
own health materials!
www.hesperian.org
images@hesperian.org
Contact us for free consultations to
help you find the images you need
for your health project.