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Citizen expectations of 'academic entrepreneurship' in health research: public science, practical benefit.

ABSTRACT: Responsiveness to citizens as users of technological innovation helps motivate translational research and commercial engagement among academics. Yet, retaining citizen trust and support for research encourages caution in pursuit of commercial science.We explore citizen expectations of the specifically academic nature of commercial science [i.e. academic entrepreneurship (AE)] and the influence of conflict of interest concerns, hopes about practical benefits and general beliefs.We conducted a cross-sectional national opinion survey of 1002 Canadians online in 2010.Approval of AE was moderate (mean 3.2/5, SD 0.84), but varied by entrepreneurial activity. Concern about conflict of interests (COI) was moderate (mean 2.9/5, SD 0.86) and varied by type of concern. An ordinary least-squares regression showed that expectations of practical benefits informed support for AE, specifically that academic-industry collaboration can better address real-world problems; conflict of interest concerns were insignificant.These findings suggest that citizens support AE for its potential to produce practical benefits, but enthusiasm varies and is reduced for activities that may prioritize private over public interests. Further, support exists despite concern about COI, perhaps due to trust in the academic research context. For user engagement in research priority setting, these findings suggest the need to attend to the commercial nature of translational science. For research policy, they suggest the need for governance arrangements for responsible innovation, which can sustain public trust in academic research, and realize the practical benefits that inform public support for AE.

SUBMITTER: Miller FA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5810666 | biostudies-other | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Citizen expectations of 'academic entrepreneurship' in health research: public science, practical benefit.

Miller Fiona A FA Painter-Main Michael M Axler Renata R Lehoux Pascale P Giacomini Mita M Slater Barbara B

Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy 20140514 6

<h4>Background</h4>Responsiveness to citizens as users of technological innovation helps motivate translational research and commercial engagement among academics. Yet, retaining citizen trust and support for research encourages caution in pursuit of commercial science.<h4>Objectives</h4>We explore citizen expectations of the specifically academic nature of commercial science [i.e. academic entrepreneurship (AE)] and the influence of conflict of interest concerns, hopes about practical benefits ...[more]

PMID: 24826905

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Project description:ContextDisaster 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.ObjectiveWe 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.DesignWe 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.SettingUS and international community-based organizations and US LHDs.ParticipantsParticipants 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.Main outcomesWe identified challenges LHDs and academic and community partners face in using citizen science for PHEPRR as well as strategies to facilitate implementation.ResultsAcademic 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.ConclusionsThere 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.

Project description:BACKGROUND:The language of "participant-driven research," "crowdsourcing" and "citizen science" is increasingly being used to encourage the public to become involved in research ventures as both subjects and scientists. Originally, these labels were invoked by volunteer research efforts propelled by amateurs outside of traditional research institutions and aimed at appealing to those looking for more "democratic," "patient-centric," or "lay" alternatives to the professional science establishment. As mainstream translational biomedical research requires increasingly larger participant pools, however, corporate, academic and governmental research programs are embracing this populist rhetoric to encourage wider public participation. DISCUSSION:We examine the ethical and social implications of this recruitment strategy. We begin by surveying examples of "citizen science" outside of biomedicine, as paradigmatic of the aspirations this democratizing rhetoric was originally meant to embody. Next, we discuss the ways these aspirations become articulated in the biomedical context, with a view to drawing out the multiple and potentially conflicting meanings of "public engagement" when citizens are also the subjects of the science. We then illustrate two uses of public engagement rhetoric to gain public support for national biomedical research efforts: its post-hoc use in the "care.data" project of the National Health Service in England, and its proactive uses in the "Precision Medicine Initiative" of the United States White House. These examples will serve as the basis for a normative analysis, discussing the potential ethical and social ramifications of this rhetoric. We pay particular attention to the implications of government strategies that cultivate the idea that members of the public have a civic duty to participate in government-sponsored research initiatives. We argue that such initiatives should draw from policy frameworks that support normative analysis of the role of citizenry. And, we conclude it is imperative to make visible and clear the full spectrum of meanings of "citizen science," the contexts in which it is used, and its demands with respect to participation, engagement, and governance.

Project description:Smoke Sense is a citizen science project with investigative, educational, and action-oriented objectives at the intersection of wildland fire smoke and public health. Participants engage with a smartphone application to explore current and forecast visualizations of air quality, learn about how to protect health from wildfire smoke, and record their smoke experiences, health symptoms, and behaviors taken to reduce their exposures to smoke. Through participation in the project, individuals engage in observing changes in their environment and recording changes in their health, thus facilitating progression on awareness of health effects of air pollution and adoption of desired health-promoting behaviors. Participants can also view what others are reporting. Data from the pilot season (1 August 2017 to 7 January 2018; 5,598 downloads) suggest that there is a clear demand for personally relevant data during wildfire episodes motivated by recognition of environmental hazard and the personal concern for health. However, while participants shared clear perceptions of the environmental hazard and health risks in general, they did not consistently recognize their own personal health risk. The engagement in health protective behavior was driven in response to symptoms rather than as preventive courses of action. We also observed clear differences in the adoption likelihood of various health protective behaviors attributed to barriers and perceived benefits of these actions. As users experience a greater number and severity of symptoms, the perceived benefits of taking health protective actions exceeded the costs associated with the barriers and thus increased adoption of those actions. Based on pilot season data, we summarize key insights which may improve current health risk communications in nudging individuals toward health protective behavior; there is a need to increase personal awareness of risk and compelling evidence that health protective behaviors are beneficial.

Project description:Partnering with people most affected by mental health problems can transform mental health outcomes. Citizen science as a research approach enables partnering with the public at a substantial scale, but there is scarce guidance on its use in mental health research. To develop best practise guidelines for conducting and reporting research, we conducted a systematic review of studies reporting mental health citizen science research. Documents were identified from electronic databases (n = 10), grey literature, conference proceedings, hand searching of specific journals and citation tracking. Document content was organised in NVIVO using the ten European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) citizen science principles. Best practise guidelines were developed by (a) identifying approaches specific to mental health research or where citizen science and mental health practises differ, (b) identifying relevant published reporting guidelines and methodologies already used in mental health research, and (c) identifying specific elements to include in reporting studies. A total of 14,063 documents were screened. Nine studies were included, from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the United States. Citizen scientists with lived experience of mental health problems were involved in data collection, analysis, project design, leadership, and dissemination of results. Most studies reported against some ECSA principles but reporting against these principles was often unclear and unstated. Best practise guidelines were developed, which identified mental health-specific issues relevant to citizen science, and reporting recommendations. These included citizen science as a mechanism for empowering people affected by mental health problems, attending to safeguarding issues such as health-related advice being shared between contributors, the use of existing health research reporting guidelines, evaluating the benefits for contributors and impact on researchers, explicit reporting of participation at each research stage, naming the citizen science platform and data repository, and clear reporting of consent processes, data ownership, and data sharing arrangements. We conclude that citizen science is feasible in mental health and can be complementary to other participatory approaches. It can contribute to active involvement, engagement, and knowledge production with the public. The proposed guidelines will support the quality of citizen science reporting.

Project description:As libraries struggle to keep pace with the changing societal landscape, emerging practices such as citizen science (CS) initiatives are being incorporated to reinforce the idea of public libraries as gathering, meeting, and collaboration spaces within the context of shared community and shared learning resources. However, there is little empirical evidence of whether the most open and participatory ways that CS puts forward can converge with and be nurtured by the essence of public libraries. Also, the roles of librarians and users in the 'next generation public library' have been under-developed. As the number of CS initiatives at public libraries grows, so does the need to collect evidence on the impact and the capacity of assimilation of CS practices. The data describes librarians and users' perceptions of participating in a citizen science project. Two hands-on activities for librarians of the Barcelona Network of Public Libraries were implemented. One was a training course for 30 librarians from 24 libraries which allowed them to envisage citizen science implementation in each library. The second activity consisted in the co-creation of a citizen social science project. 40 library users, 7 librarians from 3 different cities, and professional scientists, were involved. The data on librarians and users' perception was collected through participant observation, surveys, and a focus group to identify strengths and challenges of implementing citizen science at public libraries. The data covers librarians and users attitudes towards citizen science, their motivations to participate, their perceived ability to implement a citizen science project (as for librarians) or to contribute to science (as for library users), and the participants intention to keep engaged with citizen science, drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Responses to closed-ended survey questions are analyzed at a descriptive level. The qualitative feedback from the focus group and the open-ended survey question on motivations is subjected to a thematic analysis. The data offers interesting insights to identify opportunities and challenges of implementing citizen science at public libraries, contributing to the debate over the public library's mission as local community hub.

Dataset Information

Citizen expectations of 'academic entrepreneurship' in health research: public science, practical benefit.

Publications

Citizen expectations of 'academic entrepreneurship' in health research: public science, practical benefit.

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