{"id":43599,"date":"2018-11-30T18:54:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T17:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=43599"},"modified":"2018-11-30T18:55:38","modified_gmt":"2018-11-30T17:55:38","slug":"rebecca-simmons-using-citizen-science-to-boost-healthcare-improvement-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2018\/11\/30\/rebecca-simmons-using-citizen-science-to-boost-healthcare-improvement-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Simmons: Using citizen science to boost healthcare improvement research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2018\/11\/rebecca_simmons.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-43600\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2018\/11\/rebecca_simmons.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"160\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2018\/11\/rebecca_simmons.jpg 160w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2018\/11\/rebecca_simmons-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\" \/><\/a>No one understands the NHS better than those who use it and those who work in it. So research on how to improve healthcare must be informed by the expertise of patients and staff. At THIS Institute, we are using crowdsourcing and citizen science to connect with these groups, asking for their time to help produce evidence that is both highly relevant and scientifically important. Citizen science can help produce high-quality research and promote dialogue between researchers and the public [1-3].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crowdsourcing engages a large pool of people who individually make small contributions. These can add up to big efforts [2]. This approach can be used in citizen science research projects, where &#8220;citizens&#8221;\u2014usually members of the public\u2014provide inputs and valuable contributions despite not being formally trained experts in the topic of study [4]. By drawing on the collective intelligence of many individuals, crowdsourced projects can benefit those who run research projects as well as those who participate in them. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The most obvious advantage of crowdsourcing is the ability to collect or analyse data on a much greater scale [1]. A large crowd has the capacity to complete research tasks more efficiently than a small team of researchers. Crowdsourcing can also generate new ideas for research questions and ways to solve problems by drawing on a wider range of perspectives [3]. These benefits have been seen in citizen science projects across a range of disciplines, including astronomy, ecology, history, medicine and political science. For example, Cancer Research UK developed a project called Cell Slider, in which participants analysed images of breast tissue samples by categorising cells as cancerous or non-cancerous, and estimated levels of oestrogen receptor present in the cells [1,5]. Nearly 100,000 citizen scientists participated in the project, analysing 180,000 images and providing accurate oestrogen receptor data [5].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">By bringing non-researchers into the scientific process, citizen science\u2019s impact goes beyond individual research projects. It allows researchers to interact with the wider community, which can help to promote scientific understanding and literacy, and enhance public trust in science [6]. It can also help researchers better understand the perspectives of patients and the public and ensure their perspectives guide policy and research decisions [7].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Researchers interested in incorporating crowdsourcing can make use of a range of online platforms and tools, including the Zooniverse [8]. There are also dedicated platforms that engage online crowds to perform systematic reviews of research articles, including Cochrane Crowd [9] and Mark2Cure [10]. Evaluations of Cochrane Crowd projects have shown that the crowd performs very accurately, meaning \u2018non-traditional\u2019 reviewers can provide valuable contributions to the systematic review process [2]. The crowd\u2019s sensitivity (true positive rate) and specificity (true negative rate) were both more than 99% compared to the performance of a systematic reviewer and information specialist [11].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Though citizen science has many benefits, there are also challenges to consider when involving a large and diverse group of participants in research projects [1]. To maintain data quality and scientific rigour, researchers can provide participants with training and supervision, well-defined tasks, and feedback. Researchers should also consider how to motivate, retain, and reward participants throughout the project, since keeping participants engaged is critical to the project\u2019s success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Standard principles and policies regarding research ethics and scientific integrity generally apply to citizen science projects. However, using disparate crowds to conduct research raises some specific ethical and legal issues. In particular, researchers should carefully consider data ownership and intellectual property issues. The European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) provides a useful summary of good practice in citizen science, recommending that citizen science programmes be evaluated to assess data quality, patient experience, scientific output, and wider societal or policy impact [12].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crowdsourcing and citizen science have a huge potential to boost healthcare improvement research. At THIS Institute, these approaches will help NHS staff and patients play an essential role in building the evidence base to improve healthcare quality and safety. As our citizen science projects move forward, we will share our learning on how to best engage NHS staff and patients to help citizen science and crowdsourcing reach their potential.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span class=\"il\">Rebecca<\/span>\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Simmons<\/span><\/strong><strong><span class=\"il\">\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>is deputy director at The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute, where she provides\u00a0strategic leadership for the Institute\u2019s work to strengthen the evidence base for improving healthcare.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><b>Competing interests:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">None declared.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><b>Acknowledgements:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This article is a summary of three reports related to crowdsourcing and citizen science published by The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute in 2018. These reports are based on research conducted by RAND Europe. We would like to acknowledge the authors of these reports: Catherine Lichten, Rebecca Ioppolo, Camille D\u2019Angelo, Molly Morgan Jones, Lucy Strang, Sarah Parks and Salil Gunashekar (all RAND Europe).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>References:<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Lichten, C., R. Iopollo, C. D\u2019Angelo, RK. Simmons &amp; M. Morgan Jones. 2018. \u2018Citizen science: crowdsourcing for research.\u2019 THIS Institute (The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Strang, L &amp; R.K. Simmons. 2018. \u2018Crowdsourcing for Systematic Reviews.\u2019 THIS Institute (The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Parks, S., C. D\u2019Angelo, &amp; S. Gunashekar. 2018. \u2018Citizen science: generating ideas and building consensus.\u2019 THIS Institute (The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Swan, M. 2012. \u2018Crowdsourced Health Research Studies: An Important Emerging Complement to Clinical Trials in the Public Health Research Ecosystem.\u2019 Journal of Medical Internet Research 14(2).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Candido dos Reis, F.J., S. Lynn, H.R. Ali, D. Eccles, A. Hanby, E. Provenzano, C. Caldas, W.J. Howat, L-A. McDuffus, B. Liu, F. Daley, P. Coulson, R.J. Vyas, L.M. Harris, J.M. Owens, A.F.M. Carton, J.P. McQuillan, A.M. Paterson, Z. Hirji, S.K. Christie, A.R. Holmes, M.K. Schmidt, M. Garcia-Closas, D.F. Easton, M.K. Bolla, Q. Wang, J. Benitez, R.L. Milne, A. Mannermaa, F. Couch, P. Devilee, R.A.E.M. Tollenaar, C. Seynaeve, A. Cox, S.S. Cross, F.M. Blows, J. Sanders, R. de Groot, J. Figueroa, M. Sherman, M. Hooning, H. Brenner, B. Holleczek, C. Stegmaier, C. Lintott, &amp; P.D.P. Pharoah. 2015. \u2018Crowdsourcing the General Public for Large Scale Molecular Pathology Studies in Cancer.\u2019 EBioMedicine 2: 681\u2013689. 69.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Garbarino J., &amp; C.E. Mason. 2016. \u2018The Power of Engaging Citizen Scientists for Scientific Progress.\u2019 Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education 17 (1): 7\u201312<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"7\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Weiner, M. 2014. \u2018The Potential of Crowdsourcing to Improve Patient-Centered Care.\u2019 Patient 7 (4): 123\u2013127.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"8\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> https:\/\/www.zooniverse.org\/<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"9\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> http:\/\/crowd.cochrane.org\/index.html<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"10\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> https:\/\/mark2cure.org\/<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"11\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Thomas J., A. Noel-Storr, &amp; J. Elliott. 2015. \u2018Human and Machine Effort in Project Transform: How Intersecting Technologies Will Help Us to Identify Studies Reliably, Efficiently and at Scale.\u2019 In Cochrane Methods edited by J. Chandler, J. McKenzie, I. Boutron, &amp; V. Welch. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews Suppl. 1: 37\u201341.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ol start=\"12\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> European Citizen Science Association. 2015. \u2018Ten Principles of Citizen Science.\u2019 London.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one understands the NHS better than those who use it and those who work in it. So research on how to improve healthcare must be informed by the expertise [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2018\/11\/30\/rebecca-simmons-using-citizen-science-to-boost-healthcare-improvement-research\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-bloggers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Rebecca Simmons: Using citizen science to boost healthcare improvement research - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2018\/11\/30\/rebecca-simmons-using-citizen-science-to-boost-healthcare-improvement-research\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rebecca Simmons: Using citizen science to boost healthcare improvement research - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No one understands the NHS better than those who use it and those who work in it. 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