Documenting Undergraduate Student Food Security Through Photovoice at the University of Washington: Data Coding

Capstone teams collaborated with Drs. Michelle Averill, Derek Jennings, and Yona Sipos from the School of Public Health on their ongoing photovoice project studying undergraduate food insecurity at the University of Washington. With the support of graduate student Fernanda Nunes, the teams used Dedoose (software to help analyze and visualize qualitative and mixed methods data) to qualitatively code transcripts from the project’s winter 2025 focus group interviews and identify key themes from the data. Some of those themes include financial barriers due to high food costs, the unreliability of food resources on campus, and time constraints pressuring students to place less importance on their adequate daily nutrition intake. These findings, along with those gleaned by the project’s primary investigators and other student researchers, support ongoing efforts to inform equity-driven policy and program change and future research.

Community Partners: Drs. Michelle Averill, Derek Jennings, and Yona Sipos, and Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health MPH student Fernanda Nunes, UW School of Public Health

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Project Type(s): Undergraduate Capstone

Author(s): Team 1: Grace Calf Robe, Katelyn Rae Epperly, Unji Jung, Manu Mamea, Lauren Rosen // Team 2: Morgan Daigneault, Kylie Umeko Karimoto, Christina Lopez-Mora, Hayley Marie Rodriguez // Team 3: Ella Babcock, Kaitlyn Margaret Brunner, Paris Burbine, Gurman Mahal, Amina Sims

Program(s): Food Systems Major

Year: 2025

Adviser(s):

• Yona Sipos