Birthing Justice, Birthing Joy: Participatory Perinatal Health Research Dissemination Through an Arts-Based Multimedia Event

Despite comprising a significant proportion of the childbearing population, few obstetric health studies have examined bisexual women of color’s perinatal healthcare priorities and needs, likely masking health disparities. In response to this gap, our team of researchers and community partners led a two-year community-engaged study to explore bisexual women of color’s perinatal healthcare experiences and create community-directed recommendations for advancing reproductive justice. Though a large body of participatory dissemination literature focuses on returning results to participants, less attention has been brought to specific techniques for co-designing dissemination activities that reach a range of audiences who can benefit from the work. In this manuscript, we document the participatory methods we employed to plan an arts-based multimedia event aimed at disseminating the findings from this study. This work was grounded in Reproductive Justice and co-designed with a community steering committee of birth workers, community leaders and activists, parents, and community-based perinatal healthcare professionals. Over a series of large and small group virtual convenings, we implemented five steps to facilitate participatory dissemination planning and equitable decision-making: 1) co-developing a guiding vision, 2) idea generation, 3) collective-decision-making through circular discussion phases, 4) co-creating art pieces and 5) rehearsing the event program. Our manuscript can serve as a guide for researchers and community partners in supporting the planning of community-driven, arts-based dissemination that reaches broad audiences. Further, our work offers teams detailed techniques for collaboration that can be successfully implemented in virtual settings.