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The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the need to partner with the community in pandemic preparedness and response in order to enable trust-building among stakeholders, which is key in pandemic management. Citizen science, defined here as a practice of public participation and collaboration in all aspects of scientific research to increase knowledge and build trust with governments and researchers, is a crucial approach to promoting community engagement. By harnessing the potential of digitally enabled citizen science, one could translate data into accessible, comprehensible and actionable outputs at the population level. The application of citizen science in health has grown over the years, but most of these approaches remain at the level of participatory data collection. This narrative review examines citizen science approaches in participatory data generation, modelling and visualisation, and calls for truly participatory and co-creation approaches across all domains of pandemic preparedness and response. Further research is needed to identify approaches that optimally generate short-term and long-term value for communities participating in population health. Feasible, sustainable and contextualised citizen science approaches that meaningfully engage affected communities for the long-term will need to be inclusive of all populations and their cultures, comprehensive of all domains, digitally enabled and viewed as a key component to allow trust-building among the stakeholders. The impact of COVID-19 on people’s lives has created an opportune time to advance people’s agency in science, particularly in pandemic preparedness and response.

Investigation of the environmental impacts of armed conflict has been made easier in recent years with the development of new and improved methods for documenting and monitoring environmental damage and pollution. For decades, research into conflict-linked environmental damage and its links to human health have been overlooked and research underfunded, hindering a complete humanitarian response and effective post-conflict reconstruction. Recent developments in the field of open-source investigation have shown promising results due to the increased use of mobile phones, access to the internet and freely available methods for remote observation by satellite. Utilizing and analysing these sources of data can help us to understand how conflicts are associated with environmental damage, pollution and their negative impacts upon public health. Further research and development in this field will help to inform more effective humanitarian responses, mitigate risks to health and identify priorities for post-conflict reconstruction programs. Data-driven open-source research can also strengthen international discussions on state accountability for military activities and build a case for the responsibility of warring parties to protect the environment as well as the people who depend on it.