A systematic review published in August in Frontiers in Public Health concludes that citizen science can directly support monitoring for many health and well‑being indicators linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the WHO Triple Billion Targets. The authors are researchers from IIASA and WHO.
The review finds citizen science can contribute to at least 48 of 58 health‑related indicators and could monitor more than 80 per cent of those indicators. It could also contribute to about a third of the 231 SDG indicators overall, especially in environment, health and well‑being.
Lead author Dilek Fraisl describes citizen science as a range of approaches, from scientist‑led projects where volunteers collect data to initiatives where volunteers help set questions, collect and check results. The review highlights gaps in traditional sources and gives a case where Ghana integrated citizen data on marine plastic litter for 2016–2020. Authors note challenges such as keeping volunteers and ensuring data quality, but say good project design can improve reliability.
Difficult words
- review — study that summarises many research studiessystematic review
- citizen science — research where the public helps collecting data
- indicator — measure used to show a condition or changeindicators
- monitor — watch or check something regularly over timemonitoring
- contribute — give help or part in making something
- volunteer — person who works without pay by choicevolunteers
- reliability — how much we can trust the results
- data quality — how accurate and useful information is
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Discussion questions
- Have you ever taken part in a project where volunteers collected data? How was the experience and would you do it again?
- How could citizen-collected data help your local community monitor environment or health problems? Give one example.
- What steps could project designers take to keep volunteers and improve data quality in citizen science projects?
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