SCOPE Research Group, School of Chemistry, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Charles Perkins Citizen Science Node, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Feb 27;20(5):4242. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20054242.
The World Health Organization (WHO) maintains a list of medicines and medical devices, , that should be available to everyone, to form a functioning healthcare system. Yet, many of these medicines remain out of reach for people around the world. One significant barrier to improving the accessibility of is a paucity of information about both the extent and causes of this problem. E$$ENTIAL MEDICINE$ (E$$) is a citizen science project designed to investigate this deficit of information by recruiting members of the public to find, validate, compile and share information on through an open, online database. Herein, we report an approach to crowdsourcing both the collection of information on the accessibility of and the subsequent communication of these findings to diverse audiences. The Meet the Medicines initiative encourages members of the public to share information from the E$$ database, in a short video format appropriate for social media. This communication details the design and implementation of our crowdsourced approach and strategies for recruiting and supporting participants. We discuss data on participant engagement, consider the benefits and challenges of this approach and suggest ways to promote crowdsourcing practices for social and scientific good.
世界卫生组织（WHO）维护着一份应面向所有人提供的药品和医疗器械清单，以形成一个运作良好的医疗保健系统。然而，这些药品中有许多仍然无法为世界各地的人们所获得。改善药品可及性的一个重要障碍是，人们对这一问题的严重程度和原因缺乏了解。E$$ENTIAL MEDICINE$（E$$）是一个公民科学项目，旨在通过招募公众成员，通过开放的在线数据库查找、验证、编制和分享有关药品可及性的信息，来调查这一信息不足的问题。在此，我们报告了一种方法，用于众包药品可及性信息的收集以及将这些发现传达给不同受众的方法。“了解药品”倡议鼓励公众成员以适合社交媒体的短视频格式分享 E$$数据库中的信息。这种交流详细介绍了我们众包方法的设计和实施，以及招募和支持参与者的策略。我们讨论了参与者参与度的数据，考虑了这种方法的好处和挑战，并提出了促进众包实践以促进社会和科学发展的方法。
