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13
Posted by Liz Morris on October 13th, 2025
Posted in: Blog
Earlier this year, the University of Washington Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute completed their NNLM-supported project Empathy Lens: Humanizing Images & Education for Harm Reduction. We’re excited to share their project resources!
Per their website, “EmpathyLens.org features free photographs related to drug and alcohol use, prevention, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction. The goal of this project is to reduce stigma against people who use drugs and the services available to support them by encouraging the use of realistic, humanizing imagery in education, media, and other forms of information dissemination.”
This is an excellent image repository to access if you or your organization communicate with, or in support of, individuals impacted by drug and alcohol use, prevention, treatment, recovery and harm reduction.
In addition to a searchable database of free, humanizing imagery at EmpathyLens.org, the site includes access to other free image collections and resources to find accurate information about substance use, from both the National Library of Medicine and other trusted information providers. Usage guidelines are defined for all image sources, making it easy for you to incorporate non-stigmatizing visuals into your work.
To learn more about the impetus for this project and how it came together, check out this brief video from NNLM Discovery! Thanks for helping us spread the word about this exciting work.
ABOUT Liz Morris