Department of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157, USA.
Department of Implementation Science, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27101, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Aug 29;16(17):3150. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16173150.
Citizen science is a growing method of scientific discovery and community engagement. To date, there is a paucity of data using citizen scientists to monitor community level physical activity, such as bicycling or walking; these data are critical to inform community level intervention. Volunteers were recruited from the local community to make observations at five local greenways. The volunteers picked their location, time to collect data and duration of data collection. Volunteer observations included recording estimated age, race or ethnicity and activity level of each individual they encountered walking, running or bicycling on the greenway. A total of 102 volunteers were recruited to participate in the study, of which 60% completed one or more observations. Average observational time lasted 81 minutes and resulted in recording the demographics and physical activity of a mean of 48 people per session. The majority of adult bicyclists observed were biking at a moderate pace (86%) and were white (72%) males (62%). Similar results were observed for those walking. We demonstrate the feasibility of using citizen scientists to address the current scarcity of data describing community-level physical activity behavior patterns. Future work should focus on refining the citizen science approach for the collection of physical activity data to inform community-specific interventions in order to increase greenway use.
公民科学是一种日益增长的科学发现和社区参与方法。迄今为止，利用公民科学家来监测社区层面的体力活动（如骑自行车或步行）的数据很少；这些数据对于提供社区层面的干预措施至关重要。志愿者从当地社区招募，在五个当地的绿道上进行观察。志愿者选择他们的位置、收集数据的时间和数据收集的持续时间。志愿者观察包括记录他们在绿道上遇到的每个步行、跑步或骑自行车的人的估计年龄、种族或族裔以及活动水平。共有 102 名志愿者被招募参加这项研究，其中 60%的人完成了一次或多次观察。平均观察时间持续 81 分钟，每次记录了平均 48 人的人口统计学和体力活动信息。观察到的大多数成年骑自行车者的骑行速度适中（86%），且为白人（72%）男性（62%）。观察到的步行者也有类似的结果。我们展示了使用公民科学家来解决当前描述社区层面体力活动行为模式的数据稀缺问题的可行性。未来的工作应侧重于改进公民科学方法，以收集体力活动数据，为特定社区的干预措施提供信息，从而增加绿道的使用。
