Exploring the potential of citizen science for public health through an alcohol advertising case study

Citizen science approaches to crowdsourcing food environment data: A scoping review of the literature

Globally, the adoption and implementation of policies to improve the healthiness of food environments and prevent population weight gain have been inadequate. This is partly because of the complexity associated with monitoring dynamic food environments. Crowdsourcing is a citizen science approach that can increase the extent and nature of food environment data collection by engaging citizens as sensors or volunteered computing experts. There has been no literature synthesis to guide the application of crowdsourcing to food environment monitoring. We systematically conducted a scoping review to address this gap. Forty-two articles met our eligibility criteria. Photovoice techniques were the most employed methodological approaches (n = 25 studies), commonly used to understand overall access to healthy food. A small number of studies made purpose-built apps to collect price or nutritional composition data and were scaled to receive large amounts of data points. Twenty-nine studies crowdsourced food environment data by engaging priority populations (e.g., households receiving low incomes). There is growing potential to develop scalable crowdsourcing platforms to understand food environments through the eyes of everyday people. Such crowdsourced data may improve public and policy engagement with equitable food policy actions.

The case for citizen science in public health policy and practice: a mixed methods study of policymaker and practitioner perspectives and experiences

BACKGROUND

Citizen science (CS) is increasingly being utilised to involve the public in public health research, but little is known about whether and how CS can address the needs of policy and practice stakeholders in health promotion and chronic disease prevention.

METHODS

Using a mixed methods approach we conducted an online survey (n = 83) and semi-structured interviews (n = 21) with policy and practice stakeholders across Australia to explore how CS approaches are perceived and applied in chronic disease prevention, how CS aligns with existing approaches to community engagement, and how the uptake of CS can be supported within policy and practice settings.

RESULTS

Most participants had heard of CS, and while few had experience of using CS, there was widespread support for this approach, with many seeing it as complementary to other community engagement approaches. CS was seen as providing: (a) a robust framework for engagement; (b) access to rich data; (c) opportunities for more meaningful engagement; and (d) a mutually beneficial approach for stakeholders and community members. However, stakeholders identified a need to weigh benefits against potential risks and challenges including competing organisational priorities, resourcing and expertise, data quality and rigour, governance, and engagement.

CONCLUSIONS

To expand the use of CS, stakeholders identified the need for increased awareness, acceptance, and capacity for CS within public health organisations, greater access to supporting tools and technology, and evidence on processes, feasibility and impacts to enhance the visibility and legitimacy of CS approaches.

A Scoping Review of Citizen Science Approaches in Chronic Disease Prevention

Background

Citizen science approaches, which involve members of the public as active collaborators in scientific research, are increasingly being recognized for their potential benefits in chronic disease prevention. However, understanding the potential applicability, feasibility and impacts of these approaches is necessary if they are to be more widely used. This study aimed to synthesize research that has applied and evaluated citizen science approaches in chronic disease prevention and identify key questions, gaps, and opportunities to inform future work in this field.

Methods

We searched six databases (Scopus, Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, PubMed, and CINAHL) in January 2022 to identify articles on the use of citizen science in prevention. We extracted and synthesized data on key characteristics of citizen science projects, including topics, aims and level of involvement of citizen scientists, as well as methods and findings of evaluations of these projects.

Results

Eighty-one articles reported on citizen science across a variety of health issues, predominantly physical activity and/or nutrition. Projects primarily aimed to identify problems from the perspective of community members; generate and prioritize solutions; develop, test or evaluate interventions; or build community capacity. Most projects were small-scale, and few were co-produced with policy or practice stakeholders. While around half of projects included an evaluation component, overall, there was a lack of robust, in-depth evaluations of the processes and impacts of citizen science projects.

Conclusions

Citizen science approaches are increasingly being used in chronic disease prevention to identify and prioritize community-focused solutions, mobilize support and advocacy, and empower communities to take action to support their health and wellbeing. However, to realize the potential of this approach more attention needs to be paid to demonstrating the feasibility of using citizen science approaches at scale, and to rigorous evaluation of impacts from using these approaches for the diverse stakeholders involved.

Embedding the Community and Individuals in Disease Prevention

The primary prevention of non-communicable diseases is one of the most challenging and exciting aspects of medicine and primary care this century. For cancer, it is an urgent matter in light of the increasing burden of the disease among younger people and the higher frequency of more aggressive forms of the disease for all ages. Most chronic disorders result from the influence of the environment on the expression of genes within an individual. The environment at-large encompasses lifestyle (including nutrition), and chemical/physical and social exposures. In cancer, the interaction between the (epi)genetic makeup of an individual and a multiplicity of environmental risk and protecting factors is considered key to disease onset. Thus, like for precision therapy developed for patients, personalized or precision prevention is envisioned for individuals at risk. Prevention means identifying people at higher risk and intervening to reduce the risk. It requires biological markers of risk and non-aggressive preventive actions for the individual, but it also involves acting on the environment and the community. Social scientists are considering micro (individual/family), meso (community), and macro (country population) levels of care to illustrate that problems and solutions exist on different scales. Ideally, the design of interventions in prevention should integrate all these levels. In this perspective article, using the example of breast cancer, we are discussing challenges and possible solutions for a multidisciplinary community of scientists, primary health care practitioners and citizens to develop a holistic approach of primary prevention, keeping in mind equitable access to care.