About Us
The Empathy Lens project is a project of the Information Services team at the Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute (ADAI) at the University of Washington. Funding for this project was provided by the Network of National Library of Medicine. The content on this site is solely the responsibility of the developers and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Who we are
Meg Brunner, MLIS
Director of Information Services
Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute
University of Washington
meganw@uw.edu
Erinn McGraw, BFA
Public Information Specialist
Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute
University of Washington
ecmcgraw@uw.edu
About the Empathy Lens project
As information specialists in the substance use field, part of our mission is to advance the progress of addiction science and improve public health by seeking and sharing valid and reliable information about substance use and substance use disorders for a range of audiences, including information about harm reduction, treatment, prevention, and recovery for researchers, health care providers, the public health and addiction workforces, and the general public.
Research has demonstrated that the use of stigmatizing language and imagery related to people who use drugs perpetuates harmful stereotypes and health inequities among this already marginalized population.
However, finding realistic, high-quality images to support our information dissemination work is a constant struggle, as many currently available asset collections, including fee-based stock photo sites, largely contain dehumanizing and/or factually incorrect graphics on this topic.
This project aims to develop a free online resource of accurate, compassionate, and non-stigmatizing images to be used both in our outreach and educational work and in the related work of organizations performing similar tasks and to educate people about the impact of harmful images and language on stigma and related health inequities for people who use drugs.
We would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions about this project! Please contact us at meganw@uw.edu and ecmcgraw@uw.edu!
Acknowledgements
We want to thank our friends at Blue Mountain Heart to Heart in Walla Walla, Tacoma Needle Exchange/Dave Purchase Project, and Recovery Cafe South Lake Union in Seattle, who very generously offered up both their spaces and themselves in support of this project. Many of the people in our photographs are staff at these vitally important organizations (no clients or patients were photographed for this project), and we are so grateful to everyone who participated in and boosted this little project up, as well as to these organizations, their staff, their clients, and so many others that do the work every day to make the world a little better for us all.
We are also so grateful to Region 5 of the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM), which was abruptly defunded on March 21, 2025 by NIH. The staff of Region 5 were ardent and unwavering supporters of this project from day one, encouraging us to revise our original project plan to aim for even higher goals. Their faith in us and the future success of Empathy Lens was truly inspiring, and the entirely of Region 5 will suffer greatly from the loss of all the staff who were terminated and the incredible work they did to expand access to valid and reliable health information in our communities.
Finally, much love and gratitude for the UW Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute, our home institution, for their support of this project and our work. ADAI4EVA. THANK YOU!