Does citizen science have the capacity to transform population health science?

Rowbotham, Sheila; McKinnon, Merryn; Leach, Joan; Lamberts, Roderick; Hawe, Penny

doi:10.1080/09581596.2017.1395393

Cited by 61 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The growing field of health-related citizen science represents one means of engaging older adults directly in contextually relevant participatory research that can benefit not only their own health, but the health of their communities [29,30]. Citizen science, broadly defined as non-scientists participating in the research process to advance science [31], is a centuries-old tradition in some countries, such as the USA [32].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Employing Participatory Citizen Science Methods to Promote Age-Friendly Environments Worldwide

King

Banchoff

et al. 2020

IJERPH

103

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The trajectory of aging is profoundly impacted by the physical and social environmental contexts in which we live. While “top–down” policy activities can have potentially wide impacts on such contexts, they often take time, resources, and political will, and therefore can be less accessible to underserved communities. This article describes a “bottom–up”, resident-engaged method to advance local environmental and policy change, called Our Voice, that can complement policy-level strategies for improving the health, function, and well-being of older adults. Using the World Health Organization’s age-friendly cities global strategy, we describe the Our Voice citizen science program of research that has specifically targeted older adults as environmental change agents to improve their own health and well-being as well as that of their communities. Results from 14 Our Voice studies that have occurred across five continents demonstrate that older adults can learn to use mobile technology to systematically capture and collectively analyze their own data. They can then successfully build consensus around high-priority issues that can be realistically changed and work effectively with local stakeholders to enact meaningful environmental and policy changes that can help to promote healthy aging. The article ends with recommended next steps for growing the resident-engaged citizen science field to advance the health and welfare of all older adults.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Employing Participatory Citizen Science Methods to Promote Age-Friendly Environments Worldwide

King

Banchoff

et al. 2020

IJERPH

103

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“…Instrumental in the increase of citizen science research has been the development of web-enabled mobile devices, especially smart phones. Such technology has allowed people to participate in projects locally, nationally and internationally in fields from astronomy (Kuchner et al, 2017) to public health (Rowbotham, McKinnon, Leach, Lamberts, & Hawe, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the potential of Twitter mining methods for data acquisition: Evaluating novel opportunities for ecological research in multiple taxa

et al. 2018

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Social media provides unique opportunities for data collection. Retrospective analysis of social media posts has been used in seismology, political science and public risk perception studies but has not been used extensively in ecological research. There is currently no assessment of whether such data are valid and robust in ecological contexts. We used “Twitter mining” methods to search Twitter (a microblogging site) for terms relevant to three nationwide UK ecological phenomena: winged ant emergence; autumnal house spider sightings; and starling murmurations. To determine the extent to which Twitter‐mined data were reliable and suitable for answering specific ecological questions the data so gathered were analysed and the results directly compared to the findings of three published studies based on primary data collected by citizen scientists during the same time period. Twitter‐mined data proved robust for quantifying temporal ecological patterns. There was striking similarity in the temporal patterns of winged ant emergence between previously published work and our analysis of Twitter‐mined data at national scales; this was also the case for house spider sightings. Spatial data were less available but analysis of Twitter‐mined data was able to replicate most spatial findings from all three studies. Baseline ecological findings, such as the sex ratio of house spider sightings, could also be replicated. Where Twitter mining was less successful was answering specific questions and testing hypotheses. Thus, we were unable to determine the influence of microhabitat on winged ants or test predation and weather hypotheses for initiation of murmuration behaviour. Twitter mining clearly has great potential to generate spatiotemporal ecological data and to answer specific ecological questions. However, we found that the types and usefulness of data differed substantially between the three phenomena. Consequently, we suggest that understanding users' behaviour when posting on ecological topics would be useful if using social media is to generate ecological data.

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“…Participatory/community science (also known as citizen science) is a growing eld that engages people in the scienti c process. But while participatory science keeps growing quickly in the environmental sciences and astronomy, its development in the humanities, social sciences, and in medical research lags behind [86], despite expectations that it will make inroads into those elds [60,87]. Both barriers in accessing personal data that is stored in commercial entities as well as legitimate ethical concerns that surround the use of personal data contribute to this slower adoption in realms that rely on access to personal information [34,36].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Analogous to the movement in other realms of citizen science, there is a growing movement toward more participant/patient involvement in research on humans, including in elds such as radiology, public health, psychology, and epidemiology [59,60]. Patients often have a better understanding of their disease and needs than medical/research professionals [61,62] and that patient involvement can help catalyze policy interventions [63].…”

Section: Participant Involvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open Humans: A platform for participant-centered research and personal data exploration

Tzovaras

Arvai

Dulaney

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Background: Many aspects of our lives are now digitized and connected to the internet. As a result, individuals are now creating and collecting more personal data than ever before. This o ers an unprecedented chance for human-participant research ranging from the social sciences to precision medicine. With this potential wealth of data come practical problems (such as how to merge data streams from various sources),as well as ethical problems (such as how to best balance risks and bene ts when enabling personal data sharing by individuals). Results: To begin to address these problems in real time, we present Open Humans, a community-based platform that enables personal data collections across data streams, giving individuals more personal data access and control of sharing authorizations, and enabling academic research as well as patient-led projects. We showcase data streams that Open Humans combines (e.g. personal genetic data, wearable activity monitors, GPS location records and continuous glucose monitor data), along with use cases of how the data facilitates various projects. Conclusions: Open Humans highlights how a community-centric ecosystem can be used to aggregate personal data from various sources as well as how these data can be used by academic and citizen scientists through practical, iterative approaches to sharing that strive to balance considerations with participant autonomy, inclusion, and privacy. BackgroundResearch involving human participants, from biomedical and health research to social sciences studies, is experiencing rapid changes. The rise of electronic records, online platforms, and data from devices contribute to a sense that these collected data can change how research in these elds is performed [1,2,3,4] Among the impacted disciplines is precision medicine -

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Does citizen science have the capacity to transform population health science?

Cited by 61 publications

References 37 publications

Employing Participatory Citizen Science Methods to Promote Age-Friendly Environments Worldwide

Employing Participatory Citizen Science Methods to Promote Age-Friendly Environments Worldwide

Testing the potential of Twitter mining methods for data acquisition: Evaluating novel opportunities for ecological research in multiple taxa

Open Humans: A platform for participant-centered research and personal data exploration

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