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What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors

Citizen science is increasing in popularity but remains largely located in the disciplines of environmental and natural sciences. However, it has the potential to be a useful tool in other disciplines such as health. The aim of this study was to identify the factors for involvement (or non-involveme...

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Autores principales: Lehman, Elizabeth, Jepson, Ruth, McAteer, John, Archibald, Daryll
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7578925/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32977509
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17196950
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author Lehman, Elizabeth
Jepson, Ruth
McAteer, John
Archibald, Daryll
author_facet Lehman, Elizabeth
Jepson, Ruth
McAteer, John
Archibald, Daryll
author_sort Lehman, Elizabeth
collection PubMed
description Citizen science is increasing in popularity but remains largely located in the disciplines of environmental and natural sciences. However, it has the potential to be a useful tool in other disciplines such as health. The aim of this study was to identify the factors for involvement (or non-involvement) in health-related citizen science projects using the Our Outdoors citizen science initiative as an example. Our Outdoors aims to understand how urban and rural shared outdoors spaces (e.g., parks, lakes, rivers, beaches) can affect human health and well-being (both positively and negatively). Understanding the motivations for involvement in such a program is likely to be useful for increasing participation rates and involvement. Qualitative research methods were used in this study in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 participants from two community projects in Scotland, United Kingdom. A thematic analysis revealed five key themes pertaining to the factors that motivated engagement with health-related citizen science projects such as Our Outdoors. These include enhancing social connectedness; personal learning development; making a difference in the community; gaining health and well-being benefits; and finally, demotivating factors relating to time constraints and the term “citizen science”. This study concludes that emphasising motivating factors in the promotional material for health-related citizen science projects may increase recruitment and the active involvement of participants. Similarly, reducing the presence of demotivating factors and considering the use of the term “citizen science” is likely to encourage participation
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spelling pubmed-75789252020-10-29 What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors Lehman, Elizabeth Jepson, Ruth McAteer, John Archibald, Daryll Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Citizen science is increasing in popularity but remains largely located in the disciplines of environmental and natural sciences. However, it has the potential to be a useful tool in other disciplines such as health. The aim of this study was to identify the factors for involvement (or non-involvement) in health-related citizen science projects using the Our Outdoors citizen science initiative as an example. Our Outdoors aims to understand how urban and rural shared outdoors spaces (e.g., parks, lakes, rivers, beaches) can affect human health and well-being (both positively and negatively). Understanding the motivations for involvement in such a program is likely to be useful for increasing participation rates and involvement. Qualitative research methods were used in this study in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 participants from two community projects in Scotland, United Kingdom. A thematic analysis revealed five key themes pertaining to the factors that motivated engagement with health-related citizen science projects such as Our Outdoors. These include enhancing social connectedness; personal learning development; making a difference in the community; gaining health and well-being benefits; and finally, demotivating factors relating to time constraints and the term “citizen science”. This study concludes that emphasising motivating factors in the promotional material for health-related citizen science projects may increase recruitment and the active involvement of participants. Similarly, reducing the presence of demotivating factors and considering the use of the term “citizen science” is likely to encourage participation MDPI 2020-09-23 2020-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7578925/ /pubmed/32977509 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17196950 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lehman, Elizabeth
Jepson, Ruth
McAteer, John
Archibald, Daryll
What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors
title What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors
title_full What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors
title_fullStr What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors
title_full_unstemmed What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors
title_short What Motivates Volunteers to Engage in Health-Related Citizen Science Initiatives? A Case Study of Our Outdoors
title_sort what motivates volunteers to engage in health-related citizen science initiatives? a case study of our outdoors
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7578925/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32977509
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17196950
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