A call for citizen science in pandemic preparedness and response: beyond data collection

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 as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ Global Health Vol. 7; no. 6; p. e009389
Main Authors: Tan, Yi-Roe, Agrawal, Anurag, Matsoso, Malebona Precious, Katz, Rebecca, Davis, Sara L M, Winkler, Andrea Sylvia, Huber, Annalena, Joshi, Ashish, El-Mohandes, Ayman, Mellado, Bruce, Mubaira, Caroline Antonia, Canlas, Felipe C, Asiki, Gershim, Khosa, Harjyot, Lazarus, Jeffrey Victor, Choisy, Marc, Recamonde-Mendoza, Mariana, Keiser, Olivia, Okwen, Patrick, English, Rene, Stinckwich, Serge, Kiwuwa-Muyingo, Sylvia, Kutadza, Tariro, Sethi, Tavpritesh, Mathaha, Thuso, Nguyen, Vinh Kim, Gill, Amandeep, Yap, Peiling
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England BMJ Publishing Group Ltd 01.06.2022
BMJ
BMJ Publishing Group LTD
BMJ Publishing Group
Subjects:
Analysis
Analysis ; COVID-19 ; health systems ; public health ; infections, diseases, disorders, injuries
Citizen Science
Collaboration
Community involvement
Community Participation
COVID-19
Data Collection
Decision making
Health systems
Humans
Infections, diseases, disorders, injuries
Infectious and parasitic diseases
Influenza
info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/613
Medicine (General)
Pandemics
Public health
Public participation
R5-920
RC109-216
COVID-19
health systems
infections, diseases, disorders, injuries
public health
ISSN:2059-7908, 2059-7908
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary: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.
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ISSN:2059-7908
2059-7908
DOI:10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009389