Division of Social and Economic Wellbeing, RAND Corporation, Arlington, Virginia (Drs Siddiqi, Uscher-Pines, and Chari); and University of Virginia School of Law, Charlottesville, Virginia (Ms Kareddy).
J Public Health Manag Pract. 2023;29(4):473-486. doi: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001686. Epub 2023 Mar 2.
Disaster citizen is the use of scientific methods by the public to address preparedness, response, or recovery needs. Disaster citizen science applications with public health relevance are growing in academic and community sectors, but integration with public health emergency preparedness, response, and recovery (PHEPRR) agencies is limited.
We examined how local health departments (LHDs) and community-based organizations have used citizen science to build public health preparedness and response (PHEP) capabilities. The purpose of this study is to help LHDs make use of citizen science to support PHEPRR.
We conducted semistructured telephone interviews (n = 55) with LHD, academic, and community representatives engaged or interested in citizen science. We used inductive and deductive methods to code and analyze interview transcripts.
US and international community-based organizations and US LHDs.
Participants included 18 LHD representatives reflecting diversity in geographic regions and population sizes served and 31 disaster citizen science project leaders and 6 citizen science thought leaders.
We identified challenges LHDs and academic and community partners face in using citizen science for PHEPRR as well as strategies to facilitate implementation.
Academic and community-led disaster citizen science activities aligned with many PHEP capabilities including community preparedness, community recovery, public health surveillance and epidemiological investigation, and volunteer management. All participant groups discussed challenges related to resources, volunteer management, collaborations, research quality, and institutional acceptance of citizen science. The LHD representatives noted unique barriers due to legal and regulatory constraints and their role in using citizen science data to inform public health decisions. Strategies to increase institutional acceptance included enhancing policy support for citizen science, increasing volunteer management support, developing best practices for research quality, strengthening collaborations, and adopting lessons learned from relevant PHEPRR activities.
There are challenges to overcome in building PHEPRR capacity for disaster citizen science but also opportunities for LHDs to leverage the growing body of work, knowledge, and resources in academic and community sectors.
灾害公民是指公众利用科学方法来满足备灾、应对或恢复的需求。具有公共卫生相关性的灾害公民科学应用在学术和社区领域不断增加，但与公共卫生应急准备、应对和恢复（PHEPRR）机构的整合有限。
我们研究了地方卫生部门（LHD）和社区组织如何利用公民科学来建立公共卫生备灾和应对（PHEP）能力。本研究的目的是帮助 LHD 利用公民科学来支持 PHEPRR。
我们对参与或有兴趣参与公民科学的 LHD、学术和社区代表进行了半结构式电话访谈（n=55）。我们使用归纳和演绎方法对访谈记录进行编码和分析。
美国和国际社区组织以及美国 LHD。
参与者包括 18 名 LHD 代表，反映了服务地理区域和人口规模的多样性，以及 31 名灾害公民科学项目负责人和 6 名公民科学思想领袖。
我们确定了 LHD 以及学术和社区合作伙伴在将公民科学用于 PHEPRR 方面面临的挑战，以及促进实施的策略。
学术和社区主导的灾害公民科学活动与许多 PHEP 能力相吻合，包括社区备灾、社区恢复、公共卫生监测和流行病学调查以及志愿者管理。所有参与群体都讨论了与资源、志愿者管理、合作、研究质量和机构对公民科学的接受度相关的挑战。LHD 代表指出了由于法律和监管限制以及他们在使用公民科学数据为公共卫生决策提供信息方面的角色而导致的独特障碍。增加机构接受度的策略包括加强对公民科学的政策支持、增加志愿者管理支持、制定研究质量最佳实践、加强合作以及采用相关 PHEPRR 活动中吸取的经验教训。
在建立灾害公民科学的 PHEPRR 能力方面存在挑战，但 LHD 也有机会利用学术和社区部门不断增加的工作、知识和资源。
